Dear Girls Book Summary - Dear Girls Book explained in key points

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Dear Girls summary

Name: Dear Girls
Rating: 3.9 (56 reviews)
Author: Ali Wong

Ali Wong

Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, and Advice for Living Your Best Life

3.9 (56 ratings)

21 mins

Brief summary

Dear Girls by Ali Wong is an autobiographical comedy book that is hilarious yet insightful, describing various aspects of Wong's life, from growing up as an Asian-American to being a working mother, all while weaving in life lessons and hilarious anecdotes.

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Inspiration Women's Stories Memoirs

Table of Contents

Dear Girls
Summary of 8 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 8

What’s in it for me? Get comfortable with being yourself.

Dear Girls (2019) is a reflection on author Ali Wong’s life as an Asian-American woman, and later, a comedian. Addressed to her infant daughters in a series of letters, the book recounts Ali’s wild teen years growing up in San Francisco, her bad experiences with casual sex while living in New York, and the difficulties of parenting.

Rather than being a step-by-step guide to raising two children, Dear Girls is a series of simple life lessons. In these, Ali offers wisdom about how you can be both a mother and a career woman, why traveling and leaving your comfort zone are important, and truly accepting yourself.

More than that, though, Dear Girls is a strong argument against perfectionism. The author shows us how simply embracing our bodies, personality quirks, and other eccentricities can help us on the road to the life and career that we want.

In these blinks, you’ll find out

that it is entirely possible for women to have a family and a career;
how getting comfortable with imperfection can free you from self-doubt; and
that parenting isn’t a walk in the park but one of the most rewarding experiences a person can have.

Ali Wong’s life story shows us that professional and personal ups and downs are crucial for self-development.

We all have an image of what our perfect life would look like. Whether it’s securing our dream job, living out a romance fit for the movies, or having a family, we all aspire to something. But while these ambitions can be motivating, they can also give us false expectations.

Life is not necessarily a linear path but a journey full of twists, turns, happiness, and heartbreak – not to mention embarrassing moments where you wish the ground would swallow you whole. Ali Wong’s story is a case in point.

Growing up in San Francisco, Ali was a force to be reckoned with. From purchasing her first marijuana pipe at 14 to shoplifting makeup and crashing her mom’s car, Ali was a typical rebellious teenager.

But despite her wild streak, Ali knew how to focus on a goal and make sure she achieved it. This took her to college at UCLA. After she graduated, her drive then spurred her to move across the country to New York City.

Ali moved to New York in 2008, determined to pursue her dream of becoming a stand-up comedian. Her comedy career started at the Brainwash Cafe, a combination laundromat and bar. There, she put in the nightly work of honing her craft in front of an audience. Her determination and strength of character helped her not just survive but flourish as an Asian-American woman in a profession dominated by white men.

Between those humble beginnings and the present day, Ali studied abroad, met the love of her life, and had two daughters. But despite her achievements, her life isn’t necessarily perfect. She and her husband regularly attend couple’s therapy sessions – as she points out, they cost less than a divorce! – and she still grapples with being both a working mom and a role model to her children.

Life is rarely straightforward. For every big breakthrough, there are a hundred obstacles and challenges to overcome and moments of tragedy that will set you back. But, as Ali found, these only make you stronger. Accepting life’s inevitable ups and downs allowed her to learn more about herself and find strategies to deal with her problems.

Now she wants to share those lessons with her daughters. In the following blinks, we'll explore some of the insights that she hopes to pass on.

There is nothing more valuable than seeing the world.

It’s a cliché but it’s true: if you want to get out of your comfort zone, there’s nothing better than going abroad. When we travel, we learn things about other people and cultures that we never would have discovered just sitting in a classroom.

This is especially true when you actually spend some real time in a place that’s far from home – something Ali had the chance to do when she studied at the University of Hawai’i for two months during her sophomore year at UCLA.

Remember: other people’s ideas about your race and gender don’t define you.

We all get scrutinized by others, and people often make assumptions about us based on the flimsiest of impressions. For Asian Americans like Ali, this is a frequent occurrence. Throughout her career as a comedian, Ali has had to contend with plenty of outright racism and absurd stereotypes, not to mention the misogynistic comments with which any woman has to deal.

She’s also had to put up with being undermined as a female comedian. When Ali was in her early twenties, she climbed on stage in Honolulu only to hear a man in the audience immediately groan, “Oh no, this is gonna suck” – based on nothing but her gender and his own sexism.

The path to “success” is a steep climb.

No matter what anyone tells you, creating a career that you’re proud of takes hard work and hustle. When you’re first starting out in any profession, there’ll be times when you have to do things that you dislike, work for people that you don’t necessarily admire, and offer your skills for next-to-no money.

In her early days as a stand-up comedian and actress, there was no end to Ali’s willingness to hustle to build a career. But this wasn’t easy. By 2012, she was stretched incredibly thin – while working as a TV actor, she was also touring as a stand-up comedian in circumstances that were far from ideal.

Reminding yourself of where and who you come from can be a source of wisdom and fortitude.

Everyone has a story about where they come from. These stories – good or bad, short and sweet, or filled with twists – often make up the foundation of who we are.

Ali’s story started with her relatives immigrating to the United States – her mother came from Vietnam, and her paternal grandfather from China. Reflecting on these journeys and the fortitude they demanded has helped her find the strength to face obstacles throughout her life.

Relationships are about mutual acceptance and support.

Life isn’t perfect, and neither are human beings. Everyone has flaws, quirks, and eccentricities, along with their strengths and talents. The key to building successful relationships, though, is to accept and cherish people for all these qualities.

But let’s just take a second to be honest with ourselves here. Finding a person you’re willing to accept completely doesn’t happen overnight. You may have to experience a lot of what you don’t want before you can find what you’re really looking for.

Life isn’t a highlight reel. It won’t always work out as you planned.

We all think we know what we want our lives to look like. We make grand plans and lofty goals that we assume will make us happy. But life doesn’t necessarily care about our plans, and the world often throws curveballs at us. In the end, the only thing we can do is try to adapt.

Before Ali became a stay-at-home mom, she fantasized about all the leisurely things that she’d do with her day once she had kids. Glancing at celebrity Jessica Seinfeld’s Instagram feed, Ali imagined her time being filled with baking and trips to the spa.

Parenting is no picnic.

Most of us have heard our parents talk about their experiences of raising children. The 3 a.m. wake-up calls, diaper changes, tears, travel back and forth to soccer games, and the conversations with angry teachers are just some of the more challenging aspects of being a parent.

In some cases, excitable, soon-to-be moms and dads will be overly optimistic about the kind of parents they’ll be and what their family life will look like. Ali was one of these – when she was pregnant for the first time, she fantasized about all the different things she wanted to do and be as a parent, from raising her children on a whole-foods diet to reading to them every night. She soon found out, however, that these goals were not realistic.

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What is Dear Girls about?

Dear Girls (2019) is a loving and hilarious collection of letters from a mother to her daughters about how to deal with the inevitable challenges of life. Detailing the author’s most embarrassing, unpleasant, and momentous experiences, Dear Girls shows us that simply embracing who you are is the first step to self-fulfillment.

Best quote from Dear Girls

I look forward to us being adults together… I know things never turn out how you think they will, but Im hopeful.

—Ali Wong

Who should read Dear Girls?

Aspiring stand-up comedians
Young professionals seeking career advice
New or soon-to-be mothers

About the Author

Alexandra “Ali” Wong is an actress, stand-up comedian, and writer who is best known for her two Netflix comedy specials Baby Cobra (2016) and Hard Knock Wife (2018). A San Francisco native, Ali is also known for her performance in Always Be My Maybe (2019), which she co-created with Randall Park, and her current role in the ABC television show American Housewife.

Categories with Dear Girls

Parenting Biography & Memoir

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