Happily Ali After

May 1, 2015

Comedian Wentworth follows her best-selling Ali in Wonderland with this new collection of laugh-out-loud essays. This time though, instead of creating a satire of class and privilege, she turns her critical eye inward, on personal growth. Perhaps provoked by her favorite inspirational-quote Twitter feed, which she describes in the introduction, this reflective turn can also be explained by her looming 50th birthday. These essays allude to her youthful years in Hollywood (Wentworth is known for her roles on In Living Color and Seinfeld, among others), but focus on her present life as a middle-aged, working wife and mother. While cataloging the differences--how, for instance, her hope for a starring role on a television series has been trumped by her desire for paid work, even if that means posing as a postmenopausal woman--she is sharply observant and incisively funny. But what is most irresistible about Wentworth is her hopefulness and her relentlessly open mind, which sometimes gets her into trouble (as when she consults a psychic) but mostly accounts for why she has lived such a fun and varied life. VERDICT Readers who like Nora Ephron and Laurie Notaro won't want to miss Wentworth. Reading this book is like sitting with a best girlfriend--how fitting it is that Wentworth dedicated it to all of hers. [See Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]--Meagan Lacy, Guttman Community Coll., CUNY

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