"Dear Girls," by Ali Wong

Honest, raunchy, outrageous, feminist, fearless, relatable and very, very funny are among the adjectives that describe Ali Wong’s book, “Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life” (Random House, 2019). Framed as an extended letter to her two young daughters, it is actually a sort of memoir, with plenty of commentary mixed in. Wong is becoming an increasingly well-known comedian, with her television specials “Baby Cobra” and “Hard Knock Wife,” and actress, with the movie “Always Be My Maybe,” and of course with her live stand-up shows around the country. In this book, she writes of her loving but nontraditional (in some ways) Chinese/Vietnamese/American/San Franciscan family, of her education, her dating and sex life, her married life, her life on stage, her opinions about women’s lives, and much more. A frequent reaction of audiences, and now of readers is “Wow, you can’t say that! (but I am glad you did!)"; she has no fear of discussing body parts and processes, no matter how intimate, messy, or “forbidden-to-talk-about.” Wong is all about breaking barriers and taboos, but always in a way that seems natural and nonjudgmental. Another equally common reaction of readers is being touched by the love underlying so much of what Wong writes about. I of course love the San Francisco setting of Wong’s growing up years (although she now lives in Los Angeles, for career reasons). Wong is very good at exploring/explaining cultural/ethnic/class/gender differences, always with humor and (sometimes slightly, but only slightly, barbed) affection. It happens that she went to the same high school that my daughter did, and they knew each other fairly well there. My daughter has gone to some of Wong’s shows in local clubs, and attests that they are hilariously wonderful. I haven’t seen the shows, but I did see the movie “Always Be My Maybe,” which is funny, touching, and terrific...as is this book.