My Life as a Goddess

A Memoir through (Un)Popular Culture

By: Guy Branum, Mindy Kaling - foreword

Narrated by: Guy Branum, Mindy Kaling - foreword

In the vein of New York Times best sellers Why Not Me? by Mindy Kaling and We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby, a collection of side-splitting and illuminating essays by the popular stand-up comedian, alum of Chelsea Lately and The Mindy Project, and host of truTV’s Talk Show the Game Show.

From a young age, Guy Branum always felt as if he were on the outside looking in.

Self-taught, introspective, and from a stiflingly boring farm town, he couldn’t relate to his neighbors. While other boys played outside, he stayed indoors reading Greek mythology. And being gay and overweight, he got used to diminishing himself. But little by little, he started learning from all the sad, strange, lonely outcasts in history who had come before him, and he started to feel hope.

In this collection of personal essays, Guy talks about finding a sense of belonging at Berkeley - and stirring up controversy in a newspaper column that led to a run‑in with the Secret Service. He recounts the pitfalls of being typecast as the “Sassy Gay Friend”, and how, after taking a wrong turn in life (i.e. law school), he found stand‑up comedy and artistic freedom. He analyzes society’s calculated deprivation of personhood from fat people, and how, though it’s taken him a while to accept who he is, he has learned that with a little patience and a lot of humor, self-acceptance is possible.

Written with Guy’s characteristic blend of wit, guile, and rumination, My Life as a Goddess is an unforgettable and deeply moving book by one of today’s most endearing and galvanizing voices in comedy.

©2018 Guy Branum (P)2018 Simon & Schuster

Love this book and the performance!

I knew I liked Guy Branum watching him on Chelsea Lately and Talk Show the Game Show. This book just made me like him even more. It was everything I hoped for...juicy, funny, honest and even uplifting. I’m sure it’s great in print, too, but listening to Guy tell his own stories made it all the more intimate!

I literally LOLed

Guy is a captivating story teller. I wish he laughed more in the book because he has, honest to God, one if the best laughs ever. He made me fall in love with the chubby know it all kid I once was.

A salve for my little gay heart.

I came upon this because Guy was funny on Lovett or Leave It, I kept listening to it because his small-town California experience and tense relationship with his father mirrored my experiences. It's a good book if you're queer and alone and want to learn what a delta is and how it relates to the punjabi as much as you wanna hear that someone just as alone as you found fulfillment. It's a great book regardless.

Went by too fast

Entertaining, thought-provoking, and educational! Guy is, unsurprisingly, the perfect narrator for his memoir. Funny and touching. You won't be disappointed.

Incredible story and perfect performance

A healthy mix of autobiography and history lessons I could not stop listening to this book. Guy Branum is a goddess indeed.

Smart

This was a remarkable memoir. It’s smart, sassy, and only made me tear up, not ugly cry. That is nice because I walk the dog while I listen. That can get awkward. It mostly made me laugh. Branum likes words, language, and storytelling. He’s good at talking about all these things. I’m sad it’s over. At least he has a podcast I can go back to.

Marvelous and strange.

An erudite mix of memoir, playful pedantry, and Hollywood tell-all. Also one of the most unabashedly gay books I've ever read. Love this writer for life.