I Shouldn't Be Telling You This

January 1, 2024

Emmy-nominated Devantez (host of the podcast Glamorous Trash and former head writer for The Problem with Jon Stewart) offers a memoir focused on the pivotal women--some close friends, some strangers--who helped shape her life. Told in an intimate voice, and through essays, it is at once confessional, funny, and intimate. Prepub Alert.

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Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2024

Comedian and Emmy Award-nominated TV writer Devantez has spent plenty of time dissecting celebrity-penned memoirs on her podcast, Glamorous Trash. Now, in presenting her own, she offers up a self-aware series of essays. Many center on the women in Devantez's life: her mother, godmother, best friends, former friends, idols, and rivals. Some detail the messy absurdities of her upbringing, the conflicts within her family and other relationships, and her long road hammering out a career in comedy. There are humorous parts, of course, but plenty of raw emotion as well. The opening and closing chapters are of particular note; the initial drafts recounted her traumatic experience of domestic violence and stalking, but she learned that, for legal reasons, she could not include the content. Rather than fully cut the material, however, she's redacted specific details and left hints of the story. VERDICT Energetic and revealing, this title will surely please Devantez's listeners and fans. Aficionados of tragicomic, gossip-tinged memoirs will like it too.--Kathleen McCallister

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from May 15, 2024
Devantez, head writer for The Problem with Jon Stewart, has been through a lot. On her road to becoming a successful comedy writer, performer, and overall hilarious person, she dealt with financial instability, an abusive stepfather, and domestic violence, among other trauma-inducing situations. In this memoir, Devantez dives into the highs and lows of her life so far, structuring each chapter around an important woman in her life. From the godmother who pushed Devantez to go to college and introduced her to glamour to the best friend who taught her how to have boundaries and cheer each other's career successes, many women lifted Devantez up. Even an awful nemesis who spread rumors that pushed Devantez to reveal information about her parentage before she was ready earns a chapter on how she shaped Devantez's life. Devantez's writing, especially about the silencing she has faced related to what she calls The Big Scary Domestic Violence Thing, is incisive and witty. She has a brilliant command of tone and delivers an emotional punch alongside the laughs. A rich, thoughtful, laugh-out-loud memoir, Devantez's debut is a book to devour in one sitting.

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May 15, 2024
How a young woman with the odds stacked against her built a life of creativity and love, with her sense of humor as antidote, superpower, and best revenge. In loose essays revolving around the women in her life--her mother and godmother, close friends, celebrity role models, colleagues in the comedy business, etc.--Devantez wisecracks and trash-talks her way through her autobiography. Her story begins in poverty and under the thumb of her mother's bad choices in men--"Limoncello," who she believed was her biological father, and "Bubba," the river-rafting guide who replaced him; zigzags through her coming-of-age as a writer and performer in New York and Chicago; and ends with a heartwarming nuptial event including numerous bad-ass bridesmaids and a "Museum of Us" with mannequins wearing the clothes from the couple's first date. The author provides useful lessons on how to throw a fun wedding, survive a toxic friendship, deal with finding out you were fathered by a sperm donor; and navigate the complex and often confining hoops of a career in comedy. Several blurbers use the word raw, including her former boss, Jon Stewart (her writing for him was Emmy nominated), and they mean the good kind of raw: in your face, edgy, vulnerable. However, the narrative is also the other kind: undercooked. Without chronological order, the overall sense of story and momentum are less powerful than they should be, and more vigorous streamlining would have improved the text. What the author characterizes as the most important story, a "Big Scary Domestic Violence Thing," is redacted, apparently for legal reasons, throughout the essay--frustrating for the author and readers alike. Devantez loves celebrity memoir, hosting a Glamorous Trash podcast on this topic; her listeners will eat this book up just as it is. Funny, sad, overwhelming, and full of good intentions and sound advice.

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