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Miss New York Has Everything
Her aunt was a nun who popped pills and did time in Narcotics Anonymous. Her father grew up during the Depression, believed he'd be the next Frank Sinatra, and ended up working in the mills. His daughter, Lori Jakiela, spent her suburban Pittsburgh childhood watching Marlo Thomas in That Girl and dreaming of New York City.Instead, she got bad talent shows, a Junior Miss contest, and college in Erie, PA, where the big attraction was chicken wings. But years later, her Big Apple dreams were still going strong. With her twenties becoming a distant memory, Jakiela answered an airline ad promising a NYC home base, high-flying glamour, and three-day layovers in Paris. The reality was a roach-filled apartment in Queens, a polyester uniform cut like a sack, and a life that wasn't quite what she imagined.
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 23, 2006
4 people are currently reading
166 people want to read
About the author
Lori Jakiela
19 books112 followersLori Jakiela is the author of seven books, including the memoir Belief Is Its Own Kind of Truth, Maybe, which received the Saroyan Prize for International Literature from Stanford University, was a finalist for the Community of Literary Magazines and Presses' Firecracker Award and the Housatonic Book Award, and was named one of 20 Not-To-Miss Nonfiction Books of 2015 by The Huffington Post.
Her most recent book, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So, is forthcoming from Atticus Books in October 2023.
Her most recent collection of poems, How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? Poems at Mid-Life, received the 2021 Wicked Woman Prize from Baltimore's Brickhouse Books and was a September 2022 Book Club Read
Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, LA Cultural Weekly, Brevity, Chautauqua Magazine, Belt, and more. The actress Kristin Bell performed Jakiela's essay, "The Plain Unmarked Box Arrived," on The New York Times' Modern Love podcast on WBUR, and Jakiela has been featured on NPR and in PBS's "People Who Write Books Around Here," a documentary by Pittsburgh legend Rick Sebak.
Jakiela has performed her poems at Lollapalooza and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.
Her work has been widely anthologized, most recently in The Best of Brevity: 20 Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction (ed. Zoe Bossiere and Dinty Moore).
A former international flight attendant, Jakiela directs the writing program at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, teaches creative writing in the doctoral program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and leads many community workshops. For four years, she co-directed the Summer Writers Festival at Chautauqua Institution. She was a co-founder of Veterans Write, a program that offered free writing workshops to veterans and their families.
The recipient of multiple Golden Quill Awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, her column, "Let Yourself Go," appears regularly in Pittsburgh Magazine. She lives in her hometown--Trafford, Pennsylvania (the last stop in Pittsburgh's Electric Valley) --with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their children.
Her most recent book, They Write Your Name on a Grain of Rice: On Cancer, Love, and Living Even So, is forthcoming from Atticus Books in October 2023.
Her most recent collection of poems, How Do You Like It Now, Gentlemen? Poems at Mid-Life, received the 2021 Wicked Woman Prize from Baltimore's Brickhouse Books and was a September 2022 Book Club Read
Her work has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, LA Cultural Weekly, Brevity, Chautauqua Magazine, Belt, and more. The actress Kristin Bell performed Jakiela's essay, "The Plain Unmarked Box Arrived," on The New York Times' Modern Love podcast on WBUR, and Jakiela has been featured on NPR and in PBS's "People Who Write Books Around Here," a documentary by Pittsburgh legend Rick Sebak.
Jakiela has performed her poems at Lollapalooza and was the winner of the first-ever Pittsburgh Literary Death Match.
Her work has been widely anthologized, most recently in The Best of Brevity: 20 Groundbreaking Years of Flash Nonfiction (ed. Zoe Bossiere and Dinty Moore).
A former international flight attendant, Jakiela directs the writing program at The University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg, teaches creative writing in the doctoral program at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and leads many community workshops. For four years, she co-directed the Summer Writers Festival at Chautauqua Institution. She was a co-founder of Veterans Write, a program that offered free writing workshops to veterans and their families.
The recipient of multiple Golden Quill Awards from the Press Club of Western Pennsylvania, her column, "Let Yourself Go," appears regularly in Pittsburgh Magazine. She lives in her hometown--Trafford, Pennsylvania (the last stop in Pittsburgh's Electric Valley) --with her husband, the author Dave Newman, and their children.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews
October 2, 2012
I adored this book, particularly the latter half. I'll ding it slightly because its abundance of pop culture references from the 70's will likely distance some readers, and because a portion of my adoration stems from the story taking place largely in Pittsburgh, near where I grew up. The in references were delicious.
The prose is simple, the themes complex, the characters wonderfully drawn. Ms. Jakiela is a fine writer and this is a book that will entertain most everyone and deeply move many.
The prose is simple, the themes complex, the characters wonderfully drawn. Ms. Jakiela is a fine writer and this is a book that will entertain most everyone and deeply move many.
January 9, 2008
Bad Bad Bad. This should have never been written. I picked it up at the library after doing a search on books about flight attendants. on the cover is a plane, luggage and a flight attendant. this book is so not about that. the first 73 pages arent even worth reading. they are about the author's parents and the family is soooooooooo boring. theres nothing interesting or different about the family.
the next chapters are ok, but still, nothing out of the norm.
the freaking author doesnt even start talking about becoming a flight attendant until page 136!!!!! to make it worse, she ends her short time as a flight attendant on page 226. not even 100 pages about flying! and those few pages are sooooooooo boring and half of the pages have stupid stories that have nothing to do with being a flight attendant!
the author leads a totally boring life, and wrote a totally boring book. i spent two hours of my life- no i wasted two hours of my life reading this crap. the only reason why i finished it is because i was at the airport and didnt have another book on hand. oh dear lord- the author should just shoot herself. at least then shed be worth writing about!
the next chapters are ok, but still, nothing out of the norm.
the freaking author doesnt even start talking about becoming a flight attendant until page 136!!!!! to make it worse, she ends her short time as a flight attendant on page 226. not even 100 pages about flying! and those few pages are sooooooooo boring and half of the pages have stupid stories that have nothing to do with being a flight attendant!
the author leads a totally boring life, and wrote a totally boring book. i spent two hours of my life- no i wasted two hours of my life reading this crap. the only reason why i finished it is because i was at the airport and didnt have another book on hand. oh dear lord- the author should just shoot herself. at least then shed be worth writing about!
May 16, 2018
What to do when your gorgeous girlfriend lends you this book while your ailing in the hospital, and when you update your Goodreads list--one of your friends (whose taste you well respect) almost immediately messages you that he hated the book and the writer was one of his least favorite teachers.
...You look adoringly at the Jonathan Ames recommendation (who created your favorite tv show, Bored to Death) and move ahead.
This is a very snarky book-- snark is something that I'm consciously trying to exorcise from my writing. So in some ways, this dates the book the earlier to mid naughties.
Regardless, it does strike me as entertaining in a very "small-town Pittsburgh Girl" making her way--before Pittsburgh became known a baby Portland or culturally relevant. The name dropping local celebrities, objects of interest and such harkens back before I knew about Chabon or "Bend of the World".
It's a Dime Store (or very Pittsburgh) Sex and the City.
...You look adoringly at the Jonathan Ames recommendation (who created your favorite tv show, Bored to Death) and move ahead.
This is a very snarky book-- snark is something that I'm consciously trying to exorcise from my writing. So in some ways, this dates the book the earlier to mid naughties.
Regardless, it does strike me as entertaining in a very "small-town Pittsburgh Girl" making her way--before Pittsburgh became known a baby Portland or culturally relevant. The name dropping local celebrities, objects of interest and such harkens back before I knew about Chabon or "Bend of the World".
It's a Dime Store (or very Pittsburgh) Sex and the City.
May 16, 2008
The ending is expectedly dissatisfying, but overall an entertaining read, particularly if you're from the Trafford and/or Pittsburgh area of the world. Lori Jakiela's prose is delightfully snarky, depicting the many misadventures and harships of flight attendant work and the comical-yet-painful experiences she has endured in the air. As her love of New York City leads to her ultimate apprieciation for small-town Pennsylvania, she decides that it's the "little things" that make our lives worth living--even within her memories of the Big City.
January 18, 2019
Jakiela is a great storyteller. One of the things she tried to teach us in memoir class is that anyone's life can be interesting, and this is definitely true in her case.
I feel like I read this at the perfect time because I'm currently trying to find a job that I actually want to do long term, and my life at this point is not what I planned. I'm glad to know that even though it feels like everyone in the world has things figured out that that's not always true, and sometimes the things you didn't expect make for the best stories.
I feel like I read this at the perfect time because I'm currently trying to find a job that I actually want to do long term, and my life at this point is not what I planned. I'm glad to know that even though it feels like everyone in the world has things figured out that that's not always true, and sometimes the things you didn't expect make for the best stories.
July 24, 2021
Jakiela writes about growing up in small-town Pennsylvania, wanting to become a journalist, coming to Pitt for her MFA ("in poetry!"), and taking a job as a stewardess so that she could live in New York. Her stories are funny and poignant, and they take our expectations and throw them out the window, giving us instead: roaches, rude customers, warm beer, publications in magazines nobody reads, and a tiny apartment she shares with six other stewardesses. Jakiela draws her parents, her New York neighbors, and her friends in Pittsburgh, New York and Paris so exactly I felt I knew them. I've never seen dialogue that rang this true. Very good stuff!
November 12, 2017
Only the second half of this book is funny. The first part is boring. I would give the second half 3 stars!
September 26, 2013
Her father, the loveable dreamer, comically grumbles and skeptically refers to most people as cockroaches; her mother, the nurse who stockpiles medication in the event of an emergency, and her father’s sister, a pill-popping nun, who eventually locates the family stash; all are part of Jakiela’s colorfully comic cast of familiar characters in her first memoir, “Miss New York Has Everything.”
Jakiela takes us from her early childhood memories, through her pre-teens, and into the awkward adolescent years with heartfelt recollection, bringing the reader back to a day and age fondly remembered and not soon forgotten. Her memory is vivid, resurrecting moments filled with everything from hilarity, tension, and often, heartbreak.
One such moment is when a young Jakiela must give up her bedroom, as her Aunt, the nun, has decided to stay with the family. But her Aunt has one gnawing drawback, she constantly instills in her how lucky is she is to be adopted. At a young age, Jakiela’s response is swift, the full blast, continuous play of Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” from her record player. The moment is hysterical like most in the book, but with a certain surprise. Jakiela’s depiction of her Aunt’s identity struggle produces page-turning interest.
Fast forward to her college years in the quaint town of Erie, Pennsylvania, where she decides to be writer, and the dream in her heart, and a glimmer in her eye soon develops for New York City. After a childhood of idolizing Marlo Thomas as “That Girl,” and hoping that ‘someday’ would occur, it does, when Jakiela decides to become a flight attendant.
Jakiela’s writing is filled with precision as she flies us as readers on a whirlwind from New York City, to Paris, to Germany, Rome, and Las Vegas, detailing incidents that leave the reader in hysterical and uncontrollable laughter.
Yet her story is also filled with heartbreak, coming of age awakening, and an ending that will prompt the reader to pick up her second memoir “The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious.”
“Miss New York” has proven Jakiela to be a master of the memoir!
Jakiela takes us from her early childhood memories, through her pre-teens, and into the awkward adolescent years with heartfelt recollection, bringing the reader back to a day and age fondly remembered and not soon forgotten. Her memory is vivid, resurrecting moments filled with everything from hilarity, tension, and often, heartbreak.
One such moment is when a young Jakiela must give up her bedroom, as her Aunt, the nun, has decided to stay with the family. But her Aunt has one gnawing drawback, she constantly instills in her how lucky is she is to be adopted. At a young age, Jakiela’s response is swift, the full blast, continuous play of Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young” from her record player. The moment is hysterical like most in the book, but with a certain surprise. Jakiela’s depiction of her Aunt’s identity struggle produces page-turning interest.
Fast forward to her college years in the quaint town of Erie, Pennsylvania, where she decides to be writer, and the dream in her heart, and a glimmer in her eye soon develops for New York City. After a childhood of idolizing Marlo Thomas as “That Girl,” and hoping that ‘someday’ would occur, it does, when Jakiela decides to become a flight attendant.
Jakiela’s writing is filled with precision as she flies us as readers on a whirlwind from New York City, to Paris, to Germany, Rome, and Las Vegas, detailing incidents that leave the reader in hysterical and uncontrollable laughter.
Yet her story is also filled with heartbreak, coming of age awakening, and an ending that will prompt the reader to pick up her second memoir “The Bridge to Take When Things Get Serious.”
“Miss New York” has proven Jakiela to be a master of the memoir!
March 4, 2012
Only a flight attendant knows an international layover doesn’t equate to happiness. And only an ex flight attendant who is now an author can make “flying international” sound truly miserable. Published in 2006, Miss New York Has Everything proves not a lot has changed as far as flying is concerned. This book starts off slow, but quickly picks up as soon as Lori Jakiela moves to New York and begins her flying career. But that doesn’t happen until halfway through the book. For that I give it 4 stars instead of 5. Based on the cover artwork, this LOOKS like a flight attendant book, so those who purchase it might be disappointed to learn that even though Lori was a flight attendant for a major U.S. carrier, this book isn’t JUST about flying. It’s about a woman from a small town who has a big dream. She wants to become a writer. At the age of 45 she decides to go for it by becoming a flight attendant and moving to New York. New York, of course, is where dreams come true. I loved reading about her life in Queens. Because like most new hires who get based in New York, that’s where we all end up. Lori is funny, but in a dark and depressing kind of way. Even though I really enjoyed the book, I wouldn’t recommend it to just anyone. Writers will relate to her struggle. Flight attendants will relate to how lonely and miserable the author feels at times. Women may be inspired by how she refused to give up on a dream, regardless of the path she chose to obtain it.
January 27, 2011
I have to say the first three chapters did nothing for me. As a matter of fact, I put it down thinking this is just kind of tragic and sad. Then after a week, I picked it up again and read it in a couple of afternoons. Each chapter could be a stand alone magazine article, but all the chapters arch together to tell her life story - so far. Starting with chapter 4, the pace picks up and she had me hooked. When she blames Marlo Thomas or better, That Girl, for her dream that her life would be perfect, if she could just move to New York City - I knew I'd found a friend I could spend the afternoons with chatting. There were touching moments, happy moments, laugh out loud moments, and yes, sad moments. Nothing deep or life changing, but very entertaining.
March 14, 2013
This book was required reading for a class I'm taking: Creative Non-Fiction. I've enjoyed reading it. It would be a good beach read and there are some good stories and laughs in the book. Some seem to be stream of consciousness at times and some are very heartwarming and some are just sad but mostly it's about her life, her parents, who were good people with dreams that didn't turn out the way they thought they would and her own dreams of being a writer and living in New York and how real life intervenes. We've all had those jobs we hated and were bored with and this author tells a good story about these differences between our dreams and what really happens.
October 13, 2010
I found this book for a dollar at the thrift store. The title sounded interesting so I bought it. I thought the premise was good but her writing style failed. She was all over the place with her stories and it was written very randomly. I didn't feel for her at all, partly due to the fact that she would start a story then switch to another story halfway through the first. I won't be recommending this book to anyone.
Read
November 8, 2010Apparently the time between purchase and reading was long enough for my moron side to come out. I didn't realize it was a "memoir" until halfway through the book. Coming from an airline family myself, I thought I would relate more, but no. The book was an okay read, but I wouldn't recommend it unless you were from an airline family and could appreciate the vignettes. I didn't quite get the point of the book. It just kind of rambled on, just like this review.
August 14, 2008
I picked this book up on a whim at Barnes and Noble from the sale table. It was a great find! I laughed out loud quite a bit. She was raised in the '80s and shares all kinds of anecdotes about her family (road trips, Sean Cassidy! etc). She's a real person who reveals that in her writing. I loved the book and loved her!
April 20, 2016
By the time you finish reading Miss New York Has Everything, you will wish you were Lori Jakiela's friend, while feeling like you already are.
Lori's story is endearing, relatable, at times funny, at times sad.
I've read quite a few memoir's this year, but there was something particularly touching and special about this one.
Miss New York deserves everything!
Lori's story is endearing, relatable, at times funny, at times sad.
I've read quite a few memoir's this year, but there was something particularly touching and special about this one.
Miss New York deserves everything!
September 12, 2012
This book was a fast read, somewhat funny, but not really what I expected. This story is a compilation of short stories that go in chronological order. I thought it would be more like a cohesive memoir. Not sure what I got out of reading this....
August 25, 2007
This one struck me as being almost smack in-between "awful" and "outstanding"; well-written, with a good premise that things don't turn out the way one might hope, but still be okay.
December 22, 2007
Fast-paced, entertaining, insightful ans sweet. Oh, and funny.
May 16, 2008
I'm really enjoying this - also had the chance to meet the author, as she's a local Pittsburgh'r.
June 9, 2008
I finally finished it. And I thought at first i wasn't going to make it throught the book! It did get better towards the middle. I just wasn't lovin it!
June 5, 2008
I really enjoyed this book! I found it for $1.50 at Albertsons of all places, and I thought the cover looked interesting. It is a memoir and hilarious...
September 29, 2008
I could not find a single point in this work of nonfiction. I think the boys chose it for me because of the title. I appreciate the thought they put into the gift.
July 7, 2010
Some funny parts. Not as hilarious ad the cover claims. Glad I didn't buy it.
Read
July 25, 2011Entertaining but not particularly thought-provoking. Light and fluffy without being overly pretentious (a tough trick).
August 11, 2011
Hated it -- couldnt' get very far at all. didn't hold my interest.
Read
December 25, 2016Good laughs and a bunch of pop culture references are intertwined for an entertaining read.
November 17, 2009
It was a little slow but did have a couple of funny parts.
September 11, 2014
Entertaining memoir about a woman who grew up in the 70s and became a flight attendant
May 13, 2018
Another terrific memoir, mostly stories from Lori Jakiela's time spent living in New York. Then the memoir shifts to her return to Pittsburgh.
The author and I have almost nothing in common. I'm not adopted, I didn't grow up in steel towns of western Pennsylvania, I've never been a flight attendant, I'm not an author or college professor. However, Lori Jakiela is extremely compelling for me. When she writes about her parents, both now deceased, I miss my own parents enormously.
The author and I have almost nothing in common. I'm not adopted, I didn't grow up in steel towns of western Pennsylvania, I've never been a flight attendant, I'm not an author or college professor. However, Lori Jakiela is extremely compelling for me. When she writes about her parents, both now deceased, I miss my own parents enormously.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 30 reviews