When You Find Out the World Is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments

by Kelly Oxford

The famed blogger, named one of Rolling Stone’s Funniest People on Twitter, and bestselling author of Everything Is Perfect When You’re a Liar returns with a new collection of essays about immaturity and parenthood (or “the sheer insanity of being in charge of the safety and livelihood of three people besides myself”).

One of the most followed and beloved Twitter celebrities shares about her life in LA with the comedic skill and down-to-earth voice she’s known for on social media. Dishing about her kids, her move to Los Angeles, and her discomfort with living in LA, her marriage, and her issues around anxiety and depression, here is Kelly Oxford more thought provoking than ever before.

Written in her hilarious voice with biting observations on life, pop culture and parenting, When You Find Out the World is Against You will make you think as much as it will make you laugh.

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Humor, Essays, Audiobook, Biography, Biography Memoir

325 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 28, 2016

About the author

Kelly Oxford is a Canadian author, screenwriter, and social media influencer.

In 1996, Oxford dropped out of Mount Royal University after one semester.[2] She started blogging as a means of daily productivity and self-publishing. She later worked as a waitress and at a shoe store.

In 2001, Oxford became a full-time stay-at-home mother and began focusing on her online writing and scriptwriting. She started an anonymous blog in 2002, joined Twitter in 2009, and gained a large following, eventually attracting the attention of celebrities including Diablo Cody and Roger Ebert and being contacted by a number of agents. Oxford moved to Los Angeles in 2012.

In 2013 Oxford published a semi-autobiographical book, Everything Is Perfect When You're a Liar, which became a New York Times bestseller.

Oxford and Molly McNearney, head writer for Jimmy Kimmel Live!, developed a semi-autobiographical comedy for TV Land in early 2016. The pair would write and star in the series.

On April 18, 2017, Oxford released her second book, When You Find Out the World is Against You: And Other Funny Memories About Awful Moments.

It was announced in March 2017 that Oxford was developing a '90s teen drama series for Hulu, with her The Disaster Artist collaborators James Franco, Seth Rogen, and Evan Goldberg producing.

Reviews

[disco · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think Kelly Oxford's sense of humor is mad wicked. The first short story in this memoir had me laughing so hard, tears were running down my face. Although after that lighthearted preteen flashback, I felt like I really needed some kind of warning for the other stories. I couldn't tell if the story was going to be serious or light. I would start to laugh and then be like "oh no, that's actually just fucked up". I never knew what was going to come next and it was the bad kind of up and down. I also felt like this was unintentionally geared towards moms, which I didn't expect.

The last part of the memoir was a reflection on her #notok twitter trend. I wish that everything in the middle of the book would have been written like the first and last stories. She was extremely serious since this is an extremely serious topic - so the tone was appropriate.

Overall I enjoyed this and it was a quick read, but it seemed to need more editing work.

[Dove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow! Davina read another memoir! Shocking, much? Not at all. You guys are probably sick of me reading all these memoirs, but guys, I honestly can't get enough!!! All this advice is changing my life and shaping who I am. I really loved this book. When I saw it in the library, I was like "whose Kelly Oxford?" Cuz TBH I have never heard of her before. But I wanted to read the book because 1. She has really nice hair 2. The title was hilarious. I mean, we have all realized that the world is against us, so who can actually say they don't relate to this book?? And I wasn't disappointed. Kelly Oxford is hilarious!! Her writing style makes you cry from laughter, and it's super captivating. You won't be able to put it down. She has such great stories!! She shares all her life experiences and it's especially great when you can relate to them. I love the fact that she's from Edmonton, it's people like her that make me so proud to be Canadian because she is super honest about how Canada is, and I love it!! Like how the teachers in Canada are so caring and go that extra mile to make you feel loved. And how Canada is always so unbearably cold but that doesn't stop us from doing anything because "Canadians like to live life on the edge." Or how we are good at punching because we don't have guns :P. I also liked her chapter about the differences between puppies and kids and how they are not similar at all and her explanation on why women drink so much wine >_<. It was hilarious. Another chapter I liked was her whole chapter about rape and assault, in regards to comments Trump made and her famous twitter hashtag. I thought it was so sad to read about things that girls have gone through, and it shocks me that it happens so regularly. But I loved that Kelly stood up and voiced her opinion about it, because #It'sNotOk. It was just a perfect book. She covers a wide variety of topics, and you just really connect to this book and will be mesmerized by her tone.

[Nutmeg · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm having a really hard time understanding how this book got published? It's slow, dull, and scattered, and the author may be one of the most annoying people walking this earth. There were instances when I emoji clapped SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. in my car while listening to this. I literally put my life in danger to take my hands off of the wheel and sass clap as a reaction to this book. It currently has 4.5 stars on Amazon and I'm appalled.

[Claire · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelly Oxford is funny in a self-deprecating way. You'll either love it or you'll hate it. Sure, she's privileged, but she knows she is, and this book doesn't pretend that it's not written from this context. Oxford's second memoir is an equal parts entertaining and uncomfortable, familiar and unfamiliar story about the things that make us feel alone and helpless in the world. It's a great story about what it's like to be an anxious person, and I'm sure there's a moment in her that each of us could see ourselves in. It's funny, and serious. A great isolation audio.

[Melanie Johnson · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who doesn't know Kelly Oxford, I will say that this book had some funny moments, but also was a little confusing. I think some editing is needed to make this book flow a little better. It felt a little disjointed as it moved from story to story and sometimes jumped around in the middle of the story. For instance, in one chapter she took her daughter out of preschool and was worried about what her husband would think. She goes by the grocery store where her husband happened to be - does he work at Trader Joes? Just happened to be at the grocery store when she walked in? And there was a bizarre exchange about a homeless man that was bleeding at the grocery store while helicopters were hovering. Not sure how that related to her husband being in the grocery store. It was a little bit like talking to my best friend who is pretty funny but also has ADD so I have to follow her fireflies that come out of her mouth before sometimes seeing where they land. Thank you to Edelweiss for the ARC!

[Sally Lindsay-briggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Free books are often very good. This was a Goodreads Giveaway that I would rate as sometimes a little funny, kind of too much information frequently and far too much skipping around the rather unimportant phases in her life. No more from this author please.

[Anastasiia Mozghova · Rating 4 out of 5]

a perfect book for challenging times. reading it made me laugh out loud, but it also made me tear up. in short, Kelly Oxford is awesome, and so is her writing.

[Dustin the wind Crazy little brown owl · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was at the library and this book spoke to me on a very deep and personal level so I brought the book home with me.

Seems like Kelly's brain operates on the same wavelength as my own. I very much enjoyed her memoir.

Some Passages:

"Kelly, remember the time we found a hyperventilating duck in the basement?"
______

Once, a guy in an old rusted Datsun pulled up and asked us if we had seen his lost puppy and I screamed, "I READ ABOUT THIS KIDNAPPER'S TRICK! GET OUT OF HERE!"
______

"Can I use your DEET?" I held up the can. "I'm allergic to mosquitos and they are everywhere out there."
______

(I realize quicksand isn't a natural disaster, but for children who grew up in the '80s, it was huge fear.)
______

God bless any child who sleeps with a hamster in their room; they must have terrible rodent-sound-fueled nightmares.
______

"I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOUR DEAD HAMSTER!"
______

"I hate macaroni and cheese, it smells like barf."

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have followed Oxford for the better part of a decade (Tumblr, then Twitter, etc.) I enjoy her wry sense of humor and frenetic inner monologue, which is evident throughout. My favorite essays in no particular order are: Never Play Piggy, Silver Linings, There is a Man Who Powders his Balls, Unplanned Holiday and #NotOkay. I do agree that the book as a whole feels a bit fractured at times, but really, isn't that the nature of a collection... they don't have to be cohesive? Overall, well done, the stories resonated in familiar ways and made me connect and feel things I wouldn't have otherwise.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you yourself have OCD and social anxiety, Kelly seems like your lifetime friend. This is a funny book (not LOL, however) that relates her embarrassing and humiliating moments. The stories are very discontinuous from entirely different periods in her lifetime, without any warning when you start a new chapter, so one must overcome that, and it doesn't take long. The best part of Kelly as a narrator is that she is brutally open and sacrifices her coolness for every embarrassing incident that comes along. It's a very honest book in that sense, and one never gets the idea that she thinks she's pretty great to have all these humiliations befall her.

The chapter on her Twitter statement about improper sexual acts towards girls of every age, and the hundreds of replies she gets from women telling their own tales of assault, rape, and having to fend off inappropriate come-ons from unwanted males, is very disturbing. We still live in unevolved times and the patriarchy and rape culture are still reigning sexual expressions from the huge majority of males.

It reminded me of the time I bought Maureen Dowd's book Are Men Necessary? at Costco and was followed almost entirely out of the store by a 20-something south Asian clerk who chided me for buying the book and saying the very idea of the title was an outrageous lie. I would suspect that he may have been one of the types outlined in the book and wasn't at all happy.

[Ais · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this. My background knowledge of Kelly Oxford was limited to her tweets about Trump, but this book is a real joy that goes far beyond those tweets. The essays are hilarious, laugh-out-loud funny and Oxford's depiction of her own children and their expressions, attitudes and experiences are really great. One particular essay about grief and loss made me cry on a train- it hit very close to home.

Of all the books of essays by women, talking about relationships, parenting, education, feminism and teenage nostalgia, Oxford's is the one I've liked best so far.

[Joanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

Her blog and twitter are pretty funny, so you would think this would be too. I guess her humor is not suited to the long form, though, because this was just full of really long, boring, disjointed stories. Reading this felt like being trapped in conversation with a terrible, self-centered storyteller who's ignoring your clues that you're trying to escape. ("Will you just get to the point so I can be done??") Only made it about 75 pages in. Yikes.

[Sheralee · Rating 4 out of 5]

She is nuts, a bit obsessive, throw in some paranoia and strait forward. I'd like to hang out with Kelly. This is a funny, entertaining, light read. It's exactly what I expected and I completely enjoyed reading this book. It made me laugh and cringe at times. I'm glad I never had the opportunity to go to overnight camp!

[Jacob Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 - I’m still not entirely sure what it is that Kelly Oxford does for a living, but it really didn’t matter here. The writing is hilarious, relatable, and at times important. This was fantastic.

[Jennifer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The essays in this book weren't all that "funny" (either haha or interesting). I felt a lot of the essays were too long and didn't really fit together cohesively.

[Loraine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was halfway through when I realized that the "awful moments" in the title are, in fact, awful moments. Not sure how that was such a revelation. I probably overlooked it at first glance, thinking the "funny memories" part would negate the awfulness. But after a while it starts to bog you down a bit. I got the sense that Oxford wrote this in an attempt to purge some emotional funk, and that's not really what I'm looking to pick up. Yes, her writing is fairly funny. And her chapter on the sexual assault hashtag that went viral in response to the Pussy Grabber is gripping and critically important. But on the whole, this book is like a mopey person with high-strung anxiety attacks who makes you laugh but at the same time, wears you out more than you care to be.

Side note: half the time I was reading this was spend gazing at her author photo on the back flap. This woman is utterly stunning. She has the face every L.A. person who gets plastic surgery wishes to end up with, but never quite achieves.

[tina · Rating 3 out of 5]

I haven’t seen or read any of Kelly Oxford’s previous work but after reading this, I realized I have seen some of her tweets before, particularly her #notok ones. As someone who knows basically nothing about this person and picked the book up purely on cover appeal, I found this enjoyable. Probably if you are familiar with her work and like it, you’d love it. It is a quintessential “I am a female comedian/funny author/blogger and I am quirky and have anxiety about things” kind of book. The first essay about camp was my fave

[Morgan]

I'm still contemplating how to rate this book. I found the last chapter #NotOkay to be particularly powerful and important. Overall, this book was interesting to read but I lost interest at times. I wouldn't consider this a comedic book like those of Mindy Kaling. I was expecting something along those lines especially because of Mindy's endorsement on the cover.

[Rebecca Rubenstein · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one better. Can’t wait for the next.

[JJ Wall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kelly Oxford is smart, funny, and candid.
I love that she also uses her platform to empower women.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kelly delivers some hardy laughs; the first story had me rolling. I enjoyed the memories and appreciated #NotOkay awareness.

[Lindsey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Essays are way too long. And she’s just not funny. The last essay is a huge trigger warning for assault. HUGE. Like don’t read it.

[Ashley Wright · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Kelly's first book 2ish years ago after discovering her on Twitter and Instagram and falling in love with her sense of humor. Finally someone as neurotic and sarcastic as me! I found myself laughing out loud during her first book, but for some reason this one fell just a little bit flat for me. The stories seemed to jump all over the place. Still a Kelly fan for life.

[Alexis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this collection of essays. There was a lot I could relate to- Edmonton, anxiety, humour and constant pop culture references. I think the essays about John Binder and #notokay touched me the most, although there were many moments that I could relate to.


The Body Shop, yes!!

[Arianna Neri · Rating 5 out of 5]

When You Find Out the World is Against You makes me think a lot about life because in reality Oxford speaks about the truths of what people go through. This book was engaging from beginning to end, and it is rare that a book catches my eye from the first page. After reading this book I couldn't help but follow Oxford on her social media. Even though Kelly Oxford is an introvert person, she is extremely fun and entertaining! I knew when I went to Barnes and Nobles to buy a book that this book would be the one, not only because the first page I read said, "This is a book is for anyone who has ever felt like the world is against them. In other words, this is a book for everyone. Glad you are here," but because the cover was very eye catching and those are my types of books. Talk about "Don't judge a book by it's cover"... I'm glad I got to be the judge of Oxford's hilarious memoir. I can't wait to read her first book called Everything is Perfect When You're a Liar.

[Jennifer Kaufman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Super funny! I'm a sucker for personal essay books and even though I didn't know much about Kelly Oxford, I instantly connected with her writing style and her quirky outlook on life. Equally moving and amusing anecdotes about her childhood and her life as a parent.

[Heather Gray · Rating 3 out of 5]

So many of Kelly's neuroses resonate deeply with me - I completely adore her. I couldn't resist laughing out loud at several of her stories and got through the book very quickly. While I did enjoy it, I think her first book was better. That said, I wish more people had a voice like Kelly and shared stupid stories we can all connect with. I hope she continues to write, I would love to read more of her essays - she's an everyday hero.

[t.s. · Rating 2 out of 5]

my empathy meter must be especially snarky right now because i wasn't feeling the struggle in the this one...

[Melyssa Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

I didn't have a clue who Kelly Oxford was when I picked this book, and I still don't have a clue what she's famous for. Social media? Can you get famous for that? But she writes pretty well: I can't say I was laughing till I cried, but she turns a good phrase when she wants to. Sometimes it's too over the top to be remotely believable, and I can't relate to a single thing about her life, other that we're both moms teetering on 40. She is evidently incredibly rich, though she keeps saying she's not, (but good lawd, if Gary Oldman used to own your house and you can't stop telling us that YOU. ARE. RICH.) which didn't really make me adore her, but whatever. That's my insecurities. Some chapters are WAY better than others, making me wonder who edits her thoughts-on-paper, but the ones that are funny are super funny. The others are meh. At the end when she starts in on Trump, I began to roll my eyes - not because I like or defend or voted for the man - thinking, oh great, here it comes, some self-indulgent, cry-baby, white, privileged, rich, celebrity, society blonde, who's only famous for ... whatever it is she's famous for, about to spout about politics. Spare me. But actually it just reinforced why I refused to vote for Donald in the first place, so it wasn't so bad. Not nearly as good as Tina Fey's book, but a cute read with some very peppery, well-placed lines that will linger on after you've closed the book.

[Krystle Meyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

So I'm still not really into the short story format, but I have a lot of these books (and do like the idea of completing a story before bed at night) so I'm trudging along in 2019....

Okay, as to this collection of short stories specifically, a LOT of them are geared towards people who have kids. As someone who is childfree and doesn't find children endearing at all, it was hard to relate to some of these stories.

Other than that, there are two stories that will really stick with me and that I'm sure I'll remember long after I'm done reading this book, and, despite the reviews for this book, neither of them are funny: Good Guy Gone and #NotOkay: The Day My Outrage Went Viral. Like the author, I'm a Canadian who moved to America and grew up hanging out with some of my parents' friends and their kids that basically became family. Good Guy Gone hit me in the jugular. I sobbed. Wow it was really powerful. #NotOkay is all about rape culture and the times we live in. Again, fun, lighthearted shit (not).

Aside from my gripes about the child-centric stories and the two non-funny standouts, the rest of the stories were enjoyable and okay and somewhat funny but not necessarily laugh out loud. I guess the apt phrase here is "relatable but not necessarily memorable."

All in all this was a quick read and a better experience with the short story format that I've had in awhile.