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Window Shopping for God: A Comedian's Search for Meaning
Window Shopping for God is a memoir by your average people-pleasing, meaning-of-life-seeking, downward-facing-dog-posing stand-up comedian.
Deborah Kimmett has worshipped a lot of deities. After emerging from a rigidly Catholic childhood, she danced with witches, whirled with Sufis and explored the Power of Now like there was no tomorrow.
Whether describing her teenage fear of demonic possession (and wardrobe hack for thwarting the Prince of Darkness), the perils of a comedy career (alcoholism, alienation, sexism, etc.), or her reconciliation with her estranged brother as he faced terminal illness (just to up the stakes), Kimmett's writing is unflinchingly honest, laugh-out-loud funny and deeply relatable. As she says, “if you disassociate from your body, it’s called trauma. If you disassociate and get paid for it, it’s called a comedy career.”
Deborah Kimmett has worshipped a lot of deities. After emerging from a rigidly Catholic childhood, she danced with witches, whirled with Sufis and explored the Power of Now like there was no tomorrow.
Whether describing her teenage fear of demonic possession (and wardrobe hack for thwarting the Prince of Darkness), the perils of a comedy career (alcoholism, alienation, sexism, etc.), or her reconciliation with her estranged brother as he faced terminal illness (just to up the stakes), Kimmett's writing is unflinchingly honest, laugh-out-loud funny and deeply relatable. As she says, “if you disassociate from your body, it’s called trauma. If you disassociate and get paid for it, it’s called a comedy career.”
266 pages, Kindle Edition
Published May 4, 2024
4 people are currently reading
51 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 19, 2025
It was OK. The book is a memoir about the author's life as she tries to find meaning and discover who she is in the process. She goes through a lot (of blaming her mom for part of her childhood trama), of not really liking herself, to navigating early motherhood, and not getting along with her brother for a time. While she heals a lot throughout the book, she doesn't really go too deep about the search for God in a larger, humanistic sense. It's all hyper-focused on her life—which can be somewhat interesting if you're into this sort of drama but not so much if you're not. This wasn't my favorite read. There are some nice parts, but the ending didn't really hit home for me.
June 3, 2025
WINDOW SHOPPING FOR GOD is about a lapsed Catholic on a quest for spiritual connection on a road potted with a brain injury, addiction, depression, transcendental meditation, brain tumours, peeing into a roasting pan, premature birth, improvisation, therapy, dating an Irishman, and death-bed fart jokes. And definitely not in that order. A personal and often very funny journey of appreciation and affirmation, Window Shopping for God is a reminder that there is no order to a life well-lived, or well-died, and no funny in a life well-ordered.
Deborah Kismet is a funny human being and I think I might read anything she writes because a good humoured memoir is what we all need right now.
Deborah Kismet is a funny human being and I think I might read anything she writes because a good humoured memoir is what we all need right now.
May 25, 2024
This book moved me to tears, made me laugh out loud and had me turning the pages to discover the next chapter in Deborah Kimmett's journey. The stories are relatable to anyone who has dealt with family, with death, with addiction, with questioning spirituality, with ... any aspect of life you can imagine. The author is fearless and honest, and the writing is done in a way that feels like sitting down with a good friend over coffee ... conversational, and also fascinating. Highly recommended.
July 12, 2024
I loved this book. An eye-raising, gob-smacking, heart-lifting look at the author’s life, Window Shopping For God is one of the most open, warts-and-all memoirs that I have ever read. The book cleverly chronicles challenges that Deborah Kimmett has faced: from addiction to sobriety, births to deaths, and Catholicism to Buddhism, she safely guides us through the hard times with a well-honed sense of humour that leaves you filled with the possibilities that can come from hope and belief.
June 28, 2024
This book is essentially an autobiography by a Canadian comedian and not a study of a search for a “god”. It was funny and well written, although the final chapters dealing with her brother’s death and her grieving afterwards seemed to drag on for me. I enjoyed the book, but found the title misleading and so did feel somewhat disappointed.
July 29, 2025
Laugh out loud funny AND insightful. I happened across the end of a comedian’s set on CBC, laughed, and thought I must find out who that is. In my search I came across this book by her (Deborah Kimmett) and I’m so glad I did.
May 20, 2024
Funny. With lotsa heart.
June 9, 2024
This was just what I needed to read in this moment. Highly recommend!
Read
July 13, 2024Bonus points for being unabashedly Canadian.. but i'm not the reader for this title.
DNF
DNF
December 2, 2024
A stand up comedian writes about her rigid Catholic upbringing, alcoholism and dysfunction and manages to evoke laughter. Good read.
December 2, 2024
More memoir than spiritual/philosophy book
Read
November 22, 2024WINDOW SHOPPING FOR GOD:A COMEDIAN'S SEARCH FOR MEANING, is a most impressive work, combining humour, pathos, and a zest for life on the author’s terms. Deborah Kimmett is a Canadian comedian from stage, screen, and radio, whose take on life will make many readers look inward at their own lives and perceptions.
The book opens with Deborah’s interaction with a street person called Preacherman. She was sitting on front of a scone place, while Preacherman was espousing the word of God to anyone who would listen. He asked her if she believed in God? The author has just moved back to Toronto. He brother Kevin was terminally ill thanks to a brain tumor and she wanted to be closer to him. Throughout the pages of the book, we find there were many defining moments in Deborah’s life. In the next section on Losing My Religion, Deborah tried to say she is no longer Catholic as she lied in bed quite drunk. She would not get out of bed to attend mass. Her mother shouted back at her, “You can’t stop being Catholic. You were born a Catholic. You will die Catholic.”
Within the pages of the book, the author looks back at moments of her life that seemed to define her, and often overwhelm her. When she had her second baby, one who was quite premature, not even weighing 2 pounds, Deborah did not believe the baby had a chance of survival. The odds were against the baby. Deborah adds, “But our imaginations are so limited. When I got sober, as much as I needed a Higher Power, I needed the imagination of others to see that my life could take a different turn. And now with Laurel’s birth, I needed the imagination of all the people who were helping me to see that my daughter could live.” Indeed she did, whether the odds were against her or not, her baby survived and is in her thirties today.
There is another most poignant chapter where she met a man named Danny in a cemetery. He was sitting in a chair near a gravestone with a picnic basket near him. She asked him what he was doing. He told her he was “practicing.” She asked him for what. He told her the doctors told him he had AIDS. This was in the beginning of the AIDS era, when there were little understanding of it and little hopes of survival. He told her this meant he was grateful. “I find gratitude is the only antidote to fear. I bring myself back to the moment and find I’m grateful for everything I have at this moment.”
Deborah covers so many aspects of her life, the good and the bad, the divorces, wrong choices, Buddhism, and visiting a therapist for two years that Deborah admits only laughed once at something she said during that time. Sometimes life can be handled best with humour, sometimes with the right attitude, and in the pages of this book, Deborah Kimmett certainly succeeds on all fronts.
The book opens with Deborah’s interaction with a street person called Preacherman. She was sitting on front of a scone place, while Preacherman was espousing the word of God to anyone who would listen. He asked her if she believed in God? The author has just moved back to Toronto. He brother Kevin was terminally ill thanks to a brain tumor and she wanted to be closer to him. Throughout the pages of the book, we find there were many defining moments in Deborah’s life. In the next section on Losing My Religion, Deborah tried to say she is no longer Catholic as she lied in bed quite drunk. She would not get out of bed to attend mass. Her mother shouted back at her, “You can’t stop being Catholic. You were born a Catholic. You will die Catholic.”
Within the pages of the book, the author looks back at moments of her life that seemed to define her, and often overwhelm her. When she had her second baby, one who was quite premature, not even weighing 2 pounds, Deborah did not believe the baby had a chance of survival. The odds were against the baby. Deborah adds, “But our imaginations are so limited. When I got sober, as much as I needed a Higher Power, I needed the imagination of others to see that my life could take a different turn. And now with Laurel’s birth, I needed the imagination of all the people who were helping me to see that my daughter could live.” Indeed she did, whether the odds were against her or not, her baby survived and is in her thirties today.
There is another most poignant chapter where she met a man named Danny in a cemetery. He was sitting in a chair near a gravestone with a picnic basket near him. She asked him what he was doing. He told her he was “practicing.” She asked him for what. He told her the doctors told him he had AIDS. This was in the beginning of the AIDS era, when there were little understanding of it and little hopes of survival. He told her this meant he was grateful. “I find gratitude is the only antidote to fear. I bring myself back to the moment and find I’m grateful for everything I have at this moment.”
Deborah covers so many aspects of her life, the good and the bad, the divorces, wrong choices, Buddhism, and visiting a therapist for two years that Deborah admits only laughed once at something she said during that time. Sometimes life can be handled best with humour, sometimes with the right attitude, and in the pages of this book, Deborah Kimmett certainly succeeds on all fronts.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews