I'm the One That I Want

I bought the book hoping to gain insight into the young and talented Margaret Cho. As a stand-up she has a quick wit and fantastic personal and political observations. But as an author she is not as clever, shocking or provocative as she thinks she is. She has a good story to tell. Suffering from low self-esteem, communications deficits with her family and a clear, uphill battle with prejudice, it's easy to see the obstacles she had to deal with and subsequently triumph over. But her story-telling abilities still need some work and polish. She should read more biographies and perhaps take some classes on story development. The first 2/3 of the book are a slow, predictable read. She tries to describe her history as though it was decades ago - with the cynical eye of time, age and perception. But, in fact, it's fairly recent history. Granted, she made it through, but hindsight is always 20/20. The story is not finished. The lesson may be yet to learn. I'm sure it was great therapy for her to pound out her lurid tale of a young life gone awry. But the constant self-loathing, self-pity, fast times, "sex-drugs-and-rock & roll" lifestyle is a tune we've all heard before. The deal is: she made it out the other side but that's the shortest part of the book! A quick fix at the end of the book tries to wrap it all up in a nice neat package - and we all know that's not the way life happens. I wish she'd spent more time on putting it all together, gathering up the pieces of herself and telling us how difficult (and in what ways) she re-connected the pieces of her life and her personality. How she mended fences, the relationship with her parents at present and what she wants from life. THAT would have been a book with a real ending, not just a pretty package.

As a fan of autobiography as an art, and of Margaret Cho as an artist, this is an amazing brutally candid and specific telling of her truth as she experienced and remembers it. She does not spare herself or the show business industry in detailing a meteoric rise from working small comedy clubs to starring in her own sit com, and the price of the expectations of her in that situation for a first generation Korean-American woman. At times, this is an hilarious description of her life experiences, sometimes juxtaposed with heart breaking experiences of racism and sexism so blatant they take the reader's breath away. Not just a tell-all, this is a well written and fascinating story of a woman finding her own strength, her own truth and the right to take control of her own life (at least, as much as anyone controls their own life.) I highly recommend this book.

I was not a fan of the comedienne and am still not exactly a fan, even though I think she's talented and I DO like some of her stand up routines. But I LOVED her book! It touched my heart! It is written with honesty and warmth and her stories are very similar to the ones I lived and I cannot tell you, potential reader, how much I enjoyed and LEARNED from this book!! I recommend it with all my heart and hope ms Cho will take the time to write another one, or two, or more... because I want to know more about her insights, about life in general and about Ralph in particular :-) THANK YOU, Margaret Cho, for a wonderful, sensitive, uplifting book!

Magaret Cho has written a very powerful and very painful account of her life. Our life experiences could not have been more different and yet so much of what she writes is exactly my story, too. Open emotional wounds, the hell of rejection, self-loathing and self-sabatoge, and then, finally, self-acceptance. Perhaps that self-acceptance is provisional and/or temporary. Such a long, hard battle. There were times I had to take a break from the emotional intensity of this book before I could come back and read more but there was never any doubt that I would come back and finish this book. I do wish there had been a few photographs in the book. Other than that one disappointment, the book is magnificent.

I felt sad that Margaret Cho had been through so much and had had such a difficult time coming to terms with so much in her life. I wish her well in the future and hope she has a positive circle of friends surrounding her, who will help her make good positive choices, and that she will help her own self-esteem. I've always liked her, and failed to realize how destructive her environment had been....I'm just sorry I hadn't seen it. She was brutally honest in her book, and I hope it was cathartic for her to write it out...

I never wanted this book to end. Why did it stop. I love Margaret Cho more than puppy dogs. It wasn't even funny. It was so sad and it made me cry. And I could relate to everything she said, and I was so lucky that a few months ago she did a show in Australia and I got to see her. But I had never been to a Margaret Cho comedy show before and I don't think my friend will ever go with me to another comedy show again because of all the swear words. But as the person behind me quipped as me were leaving the theatre "Well as least she didn't use the C...word".

The one word I would not have expected to describe Margaret Cho's memoir was "poignant", and yet that is the first word that comes to mind, after reading her book. Some of the challenges that Cho encounters are not unusual, but the cumulative and continued negativity towards her as she was growing up would affect anyone's self-esteem. In the end, Cho recognizes that she is the most important person in her life, and puts that to practice now. Anyone who has had self-esteem issues can relate to and benefit from what the author learns, and applies to her own life.

I thought this book would be packed with interesting tales and lots of light-hearted stories. Not so. Lots of drugs and alcohol. Nothing fun about it. Too bad, though I am glad that Margaret Cho made it through many dark years.

I listened to this version of Margaret Cho's life, as an unabridged audiobook, read by the author. I liked that the author narrated it herself, especially when she impersonated her mother, but her male voices were painful.I enjoyed the early part of the story the most; Margaret was a loner, picked on by the other children for being different, but she told her story without sounding overly sorry for herself. Unfortunately the second part of the book was Margaret's story of excessive drink and drugs and there was a distinct note of misery and self loathing, which quickly became irritating. This section was also too long - too many tales of drinking, partying and doing drugs, where a few examples would have done.It was interesting how a child with no friends found a place for herself in comedy, in deriding the very things that had hurt her most in life. I had to respect her for that, even if her style of comedy is not to my taste. This book was published twelve years before I came across it and, judging by her appearances in YouTube, her career has progressed considerably since that time.

Korean culture, no judgement, sounds tough, throughout the book I felt like giving up on reading because frankly I started to get depressed reading it, but hey Jen Kirkmans mom read it in "I can Barely Take Care of Myself" and realized that Margaret Cho went through a lot, yes she did, awesome in Drop Dead Diva, funny, my favourite Character in Drop Dead Diva.

It's nice how Margaret dives into her past and lived to share her story. This book is neat!

Margaret Choは私が気に入っているコメディアンです。サンフランシスコにいる（だと思います）韓国系の女性です。彼女の素晴らしさは、同じアジア人である日本の女性だともっとわかるのではないかと思います。口が悪くて、パワフルで、とっても笑えます。でも、どこか自虐的なところがあって、時々、ちょっと泣きたい気持ちにもさせられます。こういう人と友達になりたいと思いますねぇ。そういえば、Sex and the Cityにも出てたかも。