I have to be honest, I judge books by their covers. And I 100% picked up this book because I saw the cover and thought "WOW, that looks like an interesting thriller!" Spoiler alert: it is not a thriller. To my surprise it is a memoir. But tell me that title, on what looks like a bathroom tile, doesn't give thriller. That aside, this well-written book is the memoir of the comedian (and writer, and actress, and many other things), Chelsea Devantez.

I have to say for being the memoir of a celebrity I've never heard of, I was really invested in this book, especially in the beginning. It had the ominous feel like something really bad was about to happen... and we were all going to be able to laugh about it. And we did! Yes, there are some traumatic experiences that she discusses in very light hearted ways, that don't diminish the experiences, but also find the humor in them.

I would say that this book was laughing in my head funny (as opposed to laugh out loud funny). I enjoyed the way she throws in punchy lines. However, as the book progressed I started to lose the sense of purpose in some of the chapters. I didn't really understand what we were supposed to take away or why some of the later chapters were included. Primarily the one about her wedding. I'm sure it was a very important event in her life, but felt like filler in the book. I would have LOVED to hear endless stories about her mother and godmother.

Overall, I'm really glad I surprised myself with reading this book and stepping into a genre I don't usually enjoy, but did in this case!

I received a complimentary copy of this book via Netgalley. Opinions expressed in this review are my own.

I'll be honest, I chose to read this book because I saw Jon Stewart's name. I'm glad I did because this book was fantastic.

I'm a huge fan of comedy and autobiographies so this was right up my alley. It's such a fascinating community that work their butts off to fill so little spaces to make people laugh. It's intriguing to me.

I wasn't a big fan of the beginning of the book. I considered putting it down and not finishing it several times. I really hate not finishing books so I kept picking it back up. At 50% I really loved the stories and enjoyed the second half of the book tremendously. It was hard to stick with that first half though.

I loved this book SO much!! I don’t rate memoirs or anything of the type (feels wrong to rate someone’s life), but I will say that this is a must-read! (Or a must listen!) I tried to read this slowly at first, to savor it if you will, but @htp_hive said it’s best to consume all at once. I was able to get an audio copy come through from Libby while I was a third of the way in, and the author narrates it herself, so of course it was 🔥.

I knew a little bit about Chelsea Devantez going in to this, but didn’t actually realize it. I had watched Jon Stewart’s show “The Problem” before, Girls5eva (I loved that show!), and Not Dead Yet - all of which she was a writer/head writer, and all of which I find hilarious, so that makes sense I’d find her book hilarious, as well.

Her memoir-in-essays is so much more than funny stories, though. This girl has been through some stuff. And unfortunately, some of said stuff was not able to be printed because of how messed up our justice system is at “protecting” survivors of domestic abuse. But Chelsea rallies and decides to tell her story with almost everything redacted, so it instead becomes a story of how our systems silence women and victims. (Talk about life-lemons-lemonade and all that crap.)

Devantez has so many good essays in this book; I’m not sure I’m even able to pick a favorite. I loved learning about her Godmother in the beginning, the true friends she makes along the way, growing up in the 90s/ early 2000s and the body shaming culture then (don’t I know it), and her notes to her mother, and then herself. (And yes I did cry because 🥺😢). How she makes you laugh while being outraged or tearful is a true feat, and one of the reasons you should read this book. Go on, go get it!

This memoir had humor, wisdom, sweetness (especially about the women in her life), difficult areas (trigger warning: mostly vaguely, but contains references to domestic violence), and some really interesting stuff just about the author herself; a somewhat-celebrity about whose accomplishments I knew nothing.

However, I didn’t really enjoy the book. I found her style of writing kind of disconnected; things happened then she moved on to something else and maybe later referenced the former thing; a bit scattered for my enjoyability. On top of this a good percentage of her verbiage (especially when trying to be funny) seemed very much her own “in” way of speaking and I often didn’t get it. (And I don’t consider myself clueless nor stupid). I’m having a hard time thinking of how to explain it. Like… she very often used metaphors or thoughts that are reliant on her own way of communicating (almost as if you would need to know her personally to get it; maybe that’s an apt explanation). Additionally, the whole beginning was, for me, a turn-off: where she redacts most of the text. This occurs again later toward the end. Although we could make out basically what happened, this device of trying to make it interesting or coy or I don’t know what, didn’t work for me. It was too much and too obscure.

The plot was…well, it’s a memoir! A comedy performer and mostly comedy writer, working her way up from poverty, and her upbringing, those who helped her, those she loved (mostly gal pals, featured wonderfully, & a lovely tribute to her mom), those who crossed her (well, a few; one gets the feeling there are far too many to mention in show biz). And her neurosis, fears, & traumas, and how she works through them to find her strength as well as useful aspects of vulnerability.

Here are a few excerpts I liked, simply in order of the where they came in the book, for you to consider if you might find the book more to your liking.


About domestic valence survivors:
"We are all taught to be sweet be polite, be normal, don’t rock the boat, so that those at the top can hold onto the power that doesn’t belong to them in the first place. We grow up siloed in our fucked-up memories, and we walk around feeling helpless and alone in our pain. And as long as we feel alone, then we’ll never realize how many of us there are."

She found memoirs of female comedians and celebrities, and these helped her so much that she began to podcast about them:
"Every time someone shares their story, the lie that we are alone in our pain is shattered, and the more I read these women’s stories, the more I can reach the surface myself."

"I can tell you with much wisdom that the biggest problem with cults is that they are fucking awesome. It’s an instant community, the rules are clear, rewards are always promised, and there are usually drugs. At any second I could fall into a cult because I love self-help. I’m always eager to find all the ways I’m terrible and try to improve them."

<i> My whole adult life, I thought I was suffering at the hands of my own shitty personality, but it turns out those flaws weren’t personality traits at all, they were symptoms. Workaholism. Hating new situations. No curiosity to travel. Hyper vigilance for safety. Even some of the good parts of who I am—my go-getter energy, my overfriendliness, my sixth sense about which asshole was going to approach us in a bar—were fueled or even created by this disorder. [complex PTSD].</i>

"My current life had become so wonderful and filled with love and stability, but my body couldn’t seem to accept that I was no longer under attack…I was stuck inside my own mind with my memories , boxing a ghost."

"I have two modes: pajamas and Met Gala, and I never pass up an opportunity to turn up the volume on either."

"Every time I’m at work in fancy Hollywood writers’ rooms and I hear a coworker say something like, “My old private school helped fund that pervert fascist’s political campaign, but I’m still giving them money so my daughter can get in there one day!’ or “Our new house is under construction, and I’m so jealous of the roofers. Imagine how simple of a job that is, no stress at all..." or "My toddler’s favorite food is sashimi,” I think to myself, Thank fucking God I grew up on mac and cheese and libraries."

" My mom taught me resilience and how to fight back and showed me how, through it all, to protect your gentleness. I refused this for so long, relying on anger and pain to push me forward when I felt weak, but one day I woke up and there it was, a small kernel of tenderness had remained. My mom had planted it there long ago and nurtured it through each phone call and text and trip to see me, urging me not to wall off my heart."

" If there is another Young Me reading this, I hope...it was clear that it’s the community she builds around herself that matters more than anything she’ll ever do.
If nothing else, I hope she knows that normal is a vicious prank, and likability is a slow poison, and that she should forever be too much and never make herself less.
I hope she continues to live for Young Me and shouts her own story wherever she goes, since in the end, I could not."

I wish to very much thank NetGalley, Hanover Press and Harper Collins for an e-copy of this book in exchange for my unbiased review.

Chelsea Devantez tells the story of her life. A memoir that disturbing and equally hilarious. She shares intimate details of her life that included domestic abuse for her mother that eventually led to repeating in her own life. She also encountered neglect as a teenager and other disturbing details. She definitely had a rough childhood.

This was also heartwarming in parts where Chelsea shares details of her relationships with family and friends. I literally cracked up laughing at many parts. I admire her vulnerability to share every aspect of her life with us. I will say there are many trigger warnings throughout the book so please check those before reading.

Bravo, Chelsea Devantez! I highly enjoyed this memoir and thank you for sharing your most intimate moments in life.

TW- domestic violence, weight issues, suicide, neglect, infertility, drug use and I’m probably missing some.

Thank you so much HTP, Chelsea Devantez and NetGalley for the opportunity. All opinions are my own.

I love Chelsea's podcast, Glamorous Trash, and I've been listening almost since the beginning, so I knew I would read her memoir as soon as it came out. I'm so glad because I loved it. Her writing is an equal mix of hilarious and dead serious trauma, that is honestly the perfect balance to strike in a memoir. If you can't find the funny moments sprinkled throughout the difficult ones, what is even the point? I loved her approach to writing her memoir and giving the reader really intimate details about her childhood, while showing how all of these things that happened to her make her who she is today as an adult. There is a not insignificant part of the book that is blacked out due to legal issues surrounding the domestic violence she endured as a young person, and the choice to black out huge chunks of this one chapter (rather than leave this section out entirely) tells a different story than I think she was originally intending to tell. The story she ends up telling in this section of the book is one about being silenced as women and being told that our stories are not as important as the stories of those who have inflicted pain upon us (usually men). It's a story about having money and being famous and still not being allowed to be honest about something traumatic that happened in her life. It's really affecting and I admire Chelsea for choosing to put this story in the book in this way. Overall, this is such a strong memoir.

This was so good, but so infuriatingly heartbreaking. I love that she conquered her trauma, but I’m mad that she had to in the first place. The system needs to do better for victims, ten fold.

Thanks to the Hanover Square and Netgalley for this eARC.

In the realm of memoirs, Chelsea Devantez’s “I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This” emerges as a raw, unfiltered journey through the trenches of life’s absurdities and the comedy industry’s labyrinth.

Told with a razor sharp wit, this book is (obviously) not for the faint of heart or the easily shocked.

Devantez, an Emmy-nominated writer, stitches together a patchwork of essays that are as much a mosaic of her life as they are a tribute to the women who’ve shaped it.

From the outset, Devantez sets the tone with a candid recounting of her upbringing, marked by poverty and the colorful parade of her mother’s partners. Her narrative is a rollercoaster that zips through her formative years in New York and Chicago’s cutthroat comedy scenes, culminating in a wedding that’s as unconventional as her path to the altar.

The book’s structure, eschewing chronological order for thematic resonance, mirrors the unpredictability of Devantez’s experiences. While this choice may sacrifice a linear sense of momentum, it lends authenticity to the storytelling, allowing each essay to stand as a poignant vignette of life’s chaotic tapestry.

Devantez’s humor is her shield and sword, wielded with precision to dissect her trials and triumphs. Her reflections on navigating a career in comedy — rife with gatekeeping and paradoxical expectations—are particularly incisive, offering a window into the industry’s often opaque machinations.

Yet, it’s the women in Devantez’s life who steal the show. From her heartbreakingly supportive mother to the enigmatic Shitbitch, each character is rendered with depth and complexity, highlighting the multifaceted nature of female relationships.

While parts of her story remain shrouded due to legal constraints, the redacted sections add to the book’s mystique, inviting readers to read between the lines, and I found the redactions clever and humorous.

Devantez’s voice is a clarion call for authenticity in a world that often demands conformity, making “I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This” a testament to the power of owning one’s narrative.

Chelsea Devantez’s memoir is a compelling collage of humor, heartache, and the hard-won wisdom of a woman who’s carved her niche in the world with irreverent grace. It’s a story that’s enlightening and entertaining, one that resonates with the tenacity of the human spirit.

My favorite Chelsea Devantez quote is "I guess that's what happens when you nearest bookstore growing up is a Walmart." It's the same truth for me, and the same for a lot of us who have grown up in the rural parts of this country. So much better than a Joseph Campbell quote or the story of two wolves.

Do I have to disclose that I am a 'Cookie'? I am, I was going to give this 5 stars if it was GAR-BAGE, because I love Glamours Trash (Formerly Celebrity Book Club) so much. Note I took during my read: I'm so indoctrinated into the cult of cookie, and Chelsea is my mother god. Please don't tell me to drink colloidal silver! Here I go with my thoughts and a bold lip.

PLEASE MORE BOOKS ABOUT FEMALE RELATIONSHIPS! Where would I be without the women in my life? Each chapter of Chelsea's story, had me thinking about who that person was for me in my life, and the versions of myself that I have walked in. It also made me come to terms in my role in my big best friend breakup, and gave me the term for Shitbitches for some others.

This book inspired me to reach back out to my middle school best friend, who is also named Britney spelled Britnie. She saved me from loneliness back when we were kids, though ironically hers was the stepdad energy, one girl three brothers, overworked mom household. Also the first place I ever heard Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy, so it all comes together. She also had a situation in high school involving domestic violence with a boyfriend that is similar to the story I know is blacked out in here. Chelsea recounting this part of her life, really put me back into that time in our lives when our friendship and need to be top grade students kept us together. We got together for lunch last week, and those old bonds still hold.

Let me also just throw in that I've grown up in an LDS community, but wasn't ever able to conform to that mold and mentality. I once had a child I was caring for tell me she was going to pray for my soul not to go to hell since I was wearing a crucifix. There's a lot to say there. I have been to many a party of "Baby, If you love me smile". Her respect for the people and not ridiculing their beliefs was also a comfort to me. It's not something I believe in, and there are many things I have a problem with, but I've had some incredible LDS friends that I would never poke fun at.

Thank you so much Chelsea Devantez for creating a community I love being apart of, and for writing this book. Please continue to create, and if you do see me in your nightmares, I hope that I can help you fight your way out of them! Also thank you for introducing me to Prados lipsticks and eyeshadows! From one southwest girl to another, bless you!

This memoir was absolutely incredible Chelsea's ability to speak her truth with such a raw and real emotion is incredible. Memoirs are one of those things where you can't really judge it because it's someones life experiences, but on the other hand you can find yourself thinking that maybe they should have just kept it to themselves. In this particular case, I am so glad she didn't. This is going to be one of those things that stick with me for a long time.

I Shouldn't Be Telling You This is a striking memoir. I wasn't familiar with Chelsea Devantez before reading the book, but that didn't matter. Told with humor and grit, the author details the women who impacted her life the most--whether for good or bad. I especially loved the final chapter that she dedicated to her mother.

I went into this memoir completely blind and totally based on the title and I was very very pleasantly surprised!

I didn’t know who Chelsea Devantez is but after finishing this very raw and real memoir about her life I went down a rabbit hole to find out more and will now be adding her podcast, Glamorous Trash, to my rotation.

Chelsea is vulnerable, inclusive, brave, hilarious, and a true role model for every woman that is struggling with feeling alone. I loved not just reading her story, but the way Chelsea told it.

Thank you @chelseadevantez for bravely sharing so much of yourself

Thank you @htp_hive and @netgalley for the early copy

5 stars

It's only appropriate that Devantez, known for devouring and reviewing celebrity memoirs in her podcast Glamorous Trash, should write her own memoir. She says early on that she intends to be completely open and not hide anything from the reader, an aim made difficult by the fact that she had to redact parts of her story for legal reasons. While some of the specifics might be literally blacked out, Devantez attained her goal, putting her story on the page, warts and all.

My memoir pet peeve is when the author sees themselves as the hero/victim of every anecdote; it makes me question the veracity of their entire tale. That concern was not an issue here, as Devantez looks back on her life with the insight of someone who has been to therapy and put a lot of hours into delving into both her trauma and her behavioral patterns. When a friendship/work partnership breaks up because of her friend's betrayal, she is able to reflect how their dynamics were toxic long before the final fracture.

This book is an ode to female friendships, living out loud, not dimming your light for anyone, rising above your circumstances then lifting others up behind you, and working on yourself so you can live a full life free from the weight of the past.

It’s hard to really review a memoir I think. Not in the typical sense where you review a work of fiction. This is someone’s life, their experiences. This memoir was funny, quirky, heartbreaking and contemplative. Reading stories from a fellow Millennial was like experiencing frequent flashbacks to high school and societal norms (body images anyone?) that were being perpetrated as a culture during those years.

This was a celebration of Chelsea’s successes and everything she overcame to get to where she is now. It celebrates the women in her life that left an impact and taught her to trust in herself and surround herself with women who uplift. It was a candid look at the struggles that she went through to get help and how finding the right person to help you is just as important as taking that first step.

Either way - I’m not a big memoir reader, but I’m glad I took a risk on reading this one and I know it will stick with me for years to come.

This book is a 5 stars for sure. It was hilarious, so raw, and truly inspiring. If you liked the book I’m glad my mother died, I think you’d really like this book. I would definitely recommend checking this out.

Thank you @htp_hive @hanoversquarepress for the ARC!

♦️ 𝙈𝙮 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙩𝙨 ♦️
This memoir was amazing. Chelsea tells her story in a non-linear way, with chapters dedicated to the women who impacted her the most in her life… with everything tying together near the end. She has a storyline that was in the book, yet not in the book, that she told in a very unique way because it was a part of her story she didn’t want to leave out.

In a chapter of the book dedicated to her reading female celebrity memoirs, Chelsea highlights the importance of sharing stories. If we have the ability to share our story, it lets others out there know they aren’t alone in their story, because so often we can feel siloed and alone in what is happening in our lives.

Chelsea digs deep to express her vulnerability and by the end of the book you aren’t sure whether to laugh or cry or both. This memoir feels like having a fun conversation with a friend, while also getting real with some tough topics.

I highly recommend reading this book, and if you have the chance to pick up the audio, do it! It’s one of the best audios from a celebrity I’ve listened to.

🎧 𝙔𝙤𝙪 𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙗𝙤𝙤𝙠 𝙞𝙛 𝙮𝙤𝙪 𝙡𝙞𝙠𝙚:
♦️ Celebrity Memoirs
♦️ LOL Moments
♦️ Vulnerable Storytelling
♦️ Comedian Memoirs
♦️ Female Powered Stories

This book is such a reminder that you never know what is going on in someone’s life. And that the most comedic of entertainers are often the one’s with deep seeded suffering. My experience with memoirs is that they often seem superficial, but that’s not the case with this one. Chelsea is pretty vulnerable, sharing some very raw stories. And even though she had to redact part of her story relating to domestic violence due to legal reasons, and probably one of the worst parts, she left it in the book blacked out, so you will understand how significant it was to her life. If you read all the way through and even google, you get the whole gist of those redacted parts may have said. In her acknowledgements, she shared that she worried about harming her relationship with her mother with this book because she shares things that she has never shared publicly before.
But foremost, Chelsea is a comedian. So intermingled with the heartaches is humor. There’s a great balance of both, keeping the memoir from being solely a sad story. Chelsea credits her girl tribe for much of her survival as bonded as they were in camaraderie in a very male dominated environment.
She writes each chapter as an essay, so rather than a straight timeline, it’s divided more by subject matter. That took me a moment to catch on, but once I did it made sense. I didn’t know of Chelsea before reading this memoir but that didn’t matter. I picked up this arc solely based on the Hive recommendation. It was her story of survival, female bonding and the journey of life that resonated.

So note to self… always read the synopsis. I thought from the title and cover of this book that it was a thriller. I was way off lol it’s a memoir. Now I do enjoy my fair share of memoirs, unfortunately this was not one of them. It’s hard to rate someone’s life, but I’m asking myself what was so great about Chelsea’s life that she wrote a book? I didn’t find anything interesting and the parts that I thought I would want to read were all redacted so I didn’t know what it was about anyways. And if you’re going to do that why even have it in the book? It wasted my time. Anyways if i know that this was going to be a memoir about someone that I haven’t heard of doing things that don’t interest me I probably would have skipped it.
I personally don’t recommend this book.
Thank you to Netgalley and Hanover Square Press for the copy.

I was invited to an exclusive event for author and comedienne @chelseadevantez new memoir, I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This! The book is incredibly raw and vulnerable, sharing things that many people would probably take to their graves. Chelsea shares incredible stories of making her way into comedy, her broken childhood including changing her last name several times and one devastating tale of a relationship with domestic violence that occurred when she was only 16. Her editors didn’t want to include this in her book and she fought to keep this part in, as it’s part of her life story. I also love her stories of her relationship and especially how she met her husband.

The book has lots of lighter moments too. She was hired as the lead writer for a new Jon Stewart show and was told to move to NYC as fast as possible only to find out, they would actually be writing at Jon’s family’s farm in New Jersey. Because of this relationship, Jon was actually the interviewer for this incredible event. Both Chelsea and Jon were just absolutely hilarious and had great chemistry together as friends of many years have.

Thank you so so so much to @htpbooks and @htp_hive for my gift signed copy of Chelsea’s book and @librofm for my ALC.