What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding

April 14, 2014
Television comedy writer Newman (That ’70s Show, etc.) seems to have the perfect job: nine months writing and three months off to pursue her passion for travel. The memoir begins in 2000, when she is 26; a six-year romantic relationship has just ended. To cheer herself up she takes a trip to Paris and Amsterdam, where she pops some Ecstasy, flirts with a lesbian, and begins a tradition of using travel to heal a broken heart. Throughout the next decade (the memoir concludes in 2011) she visits Russia, Argentina, England, Iceland, Australia and Brazil (among other places), always finding romance, adventure, and plenty of (well-documented) sex. While her friends are marrying (and having children), Newman seeks freedom and fun. The only child of divorced parents, Newman is wary of marriage, though she longs for a lasting relationship (readers will find themselves rooting for Argentinian (almost ex-) priest Father Juan). Newman includes witty travel trips (e.g., “You don’t wear booty shorts to the Western Wall on Shabbat”).The author is quick to point out that she’s “not a slut in the United States of America” and defends a female’s right to a sexy vacation romance. Ultimately, however, Newman’s funny and unflinchingly honest memoir reveals that even though there’s nothing quite like a great party in an exotic locale with a hot guy, true love doesn’t necessarily require a passport.

November 1, 2014

With everyone around her getting engaged, married, and starting families, veteran Hollywood television writer Newman realizes that she wants freedom and adventure as much as love. To avoid the threat of "Bridget-Jonesian-sad-girl singlehood," she hits the road for three-month stretches between shows, pursuing happiness and eagerly meeting "sexy people in sexy places." This delightfully funny collection celebrates romance and globetrekking.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2014
A Hollywood sitcom writer's unabashed account of how she spent 10 years of her young adulthood traveling the world and having "sweet, sexy epic little vacationships" with foreign men. Newman began traveling the world in her mid-20s. A painful breakup with her first love led her to board a plane to Europe, where she traveled all the way from Paris to Amsterdam. Two years later, she took a single-girl trip to Russia with her best friend. An encounter with a bartender led to the discovery of her libidinous alter ego, Kristen-Adjacent, and the start of her new life as "The Girl With Great International Romance Stories." Newman then traveled to Spain, where she "tussled with a Barcelonan who...[wore] black panties," and on to Canada, where she made out with a friend, then back home to obsess over the perfect man she never got but who invited her to chic parties all around the world. During hiatus from her work as a comedy writer, when all her other girlfriends were now "too married or too pregnant" to travel with her, she went alone to Argentina, where she took two lovers. One, a former priest, became an on-again, off-again flame and her reason for returning to Buenos Aires in subsequent years. On a trip to Brazil, she took up with two different men within a 24-hour period and had still more "vacationships" in Australia and Israel. Ambivalent about commitment to the point of neurosis but now adult enough to realize that she had all along "absolutely [been] looking for love," the now late-30-something Newman finally settled down without regrets for her wild and wicked past. Though entertaining and, in its way, liberating, the book often crosses the line between uninhibited and overdone. Too much information, too little substance.

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May 15, 2014
Television scribe Newman (How I Met Your Mother, The Neighbors) shares her comedic and romantic adventures abroad during the last decade-and-a-half. After spending her twenties in serious relationships yet afraid, ultimately, of settling down permanently, Newman got bit by the travel bug and discovered that the best way to battle her commitment phobia was to romance handsome strangers abroad. These brief vacationships satisfied Newman's desire for excitement and passion while not making her feel trapped. She cavorted with a handsome bartender in Russia, a sexy former priest in Argentina, and an aggressive surfer in Brazil. Newman describes the exotic locales as lushly as she does her companions, taking armchair travelers to Iceland, Australia, and Israel and sharing some of her travel snafus, such as losing her passport in Buenos Aires and being deemed a potential terror suspect by Israeli authorities seemingly because she's a single woman in her thirties traveling alone. Newman adeptly mixes humor and heart, making this the perfect read for anyone in search of love, adventures abroad, or both.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)