I'm the One That I Want

I'm the One That I Want
by Margaret Cho

I'm the One That I Want
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Book Summary Information

Author: Margaret Cho
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2002-04-30
ISBN: 0345440145
Number of pages: 224
Publisher: Ballantine Books
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Book Reviews of I'm the One That I Want

Book Review: I'll pass.
Summary: 2 Stars

I am always interested in memoirs by famous people. Tracking their path to fame is usually enlightening and entertaining.

I've found that books by comics are particularly difficult to read. So much of their entertainment value comes from non-verbal communications. This was true of Cho as well. The book felt flat to me, and it was disjointed, jumping from timeframe to timeframe with no particular rhyme or reason. While many of the anecdotes conveyed were interesting, I had trouble following along.

As a result, I stopped about halfway through. It was just too confusing for me, though I value her story and experiences.

For the light of heart -- you may want to avoid this book. It's quite graphic in parts and she doesn't hold back on the sex, drugs or rock-n-roll.

Summary of I'm the One That I Want

Comedian. Icon. TV star. Role model. Trash talker. Fag hag. Gypsy. Tramp. Thief. Margaret Cho displays her numerous sides in this funny, fierce, and honest memoir. As one of the country's most visible Asian Americans, she has a unique perspective on identity and acceptance. As one of the country's funniest and most quoted personalities, she takes no prisoners. And as a warm and wise woman who has seen the highs and lows of life, she has words of encouragement for anyone who has ever felt like an outsider. With I'm the One That I Want, Margaret Cho has written a book every bit as hilarious, shocking, and insightful as she is.
Don't come to this bitter, engrossing memoir for a quick and easy laugh. The material that Margaret Cho has turned to such riotous ends in her stand-up act has a very different flavor on the page. An unpopular child (okay, hated and reviled), Cho made friends with the drag queens who worked in her father's bookstore, soon becoming a fag hag, and finding this mutual attraction "both nurturing and powerful, sweet and sour, retail and wholesale." "Drag queens are strong because they have so much to fight against," writes Cho, "homophobia, sexism, pink eye." To support herself at the beginning of her comedy career, Cho worked at FAO Schwarz, sometimes moonlighting in phone sex. Occasionally the jobs would overlap, and she would find herself doing phone sex dressed as Raggedy Ann. There isn't much here about Cho's early success, but she does delve at length into her disastrous sitcom, and devotes many pages to her battles with her weight, with drugs, and with alcohol, and her hopeless relationships with men (none of the bisexual material from her stage act is included here). Cho's message is about self-esteem in the face of consistent opposition from her family, the network that aired a "Margaret Cho" sitcom but permitted her no creative control, and a society that rewards women for thinness, whiteness, meekness, and a shut mouth. --Regina Marler

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