Publishers Weekly
04/14/2014
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. (May)
From the Publisher
“There are lots of books out there about being the single girl in your crowd, but Kristin Newman's is a special one; it's truly hilarious and travel-oriented, which makes it perfect for summer.”—Glamour Magazine
“If you liked Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs, try What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman.”—The Boston Globe
“Newman adeptly mixes humor and heart, making this the perfect read for anyone in search of love, adventures abroad, or both.”—Booklist
“Kristin Newman reminds me of David Sedaris, but with more joy.”—Diablo Cody
“Kristin Newman’s tales of wanderlust are at turns hilarious, embarrassing, and then truly inspiring. Her thrilling escapades make me want to get up off the couch and book a ticket to some exotic locale for a sexy adventure of my own.”—Jane Lynch
‘Kristin Newman explodes the idea of the ‘singles scene’ into a thousand tiny fragments and scatters them globally. This is misspent youth well-spent.”—Patton Oswalt
“I knew that [Newman's] book would be incredibly funny, but it’s also so heartbreaking, insightful, and full of adventure, romance, and sex sex sex! Do yourself a favor and read this book!”—Will Forte
“I have had the pleasure of joining Kristin on some amazing adventures and can say without question that she is as good a writer as she is a traveler. Which is to say, slightly better when she's had a few glasses of wine.”—Nick Kroll
“Kristin puts the ‘lust’ in wanderlust and makes adventuring and even mis-adventuring sexy, fun, and at times even inspirational.”—Jill Soloway, writer/director
“Unlike the rest of us, Kristin took the road less traveled and that has made all the difference. Her sparkling wit and adventurous spirit will seduce you just as it did that guy in Argentina . . . and in Russia . . . and in Jordan . . . and so on . . .”—Nell Scovell, co-author of Lean In
“What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding is sly disguised as sexy. It reminded me of George Eliot mixed with a woodshop safety film . . . a complete delight.”—Stephen Tobolowsky, actor, author of The Dangerous Animals Club
“Kristin’s book is such an uproarious, side-splitting, jaw-dropping-while-miraculously-somehow-also-self-reflecting page-turner, it makes me feel like I traded in my own wife and children for a time machine and a spot in her globetrotting duffel bag.”—Rob Kutner, writer for Conan, author of Apocalypse How and The Future According to Me
“Riotously funny, brutally honest, and hopelessly romantic . . . Newman’s global romps and brave takedown of the dated, divisive dichotomy between happy breeders and desperate singles is one of the most refreshing things I've read in a long time.”—Attica Locke, nationally bestselling author of The Cutting Season
“Makes the reader wonder if life should always be about deep introspective moments with earth-shattering realizations, or if there’s space for spontaneous conversations with random acquaintances . . . Newman’s irreverent and ultimately graceful memoir suggests there is.”—Etinosa Agbonlahor, Off the Shelf
“[Newman] writes about other countries and other people with a curiosity and affection that is crucial to being a good travel writer. I found myself, as an Indian, wishing [she] would make her way there and report back to me about my own country.”—Diksha Basu, The Rumpus
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"[A] funny and unflinchingly honest memoir." Publishers Weekly
Library Journal - Audio
10/15/2014
Newman has been a television writer for such well-known shows as That 70's Show, How I Met Your Mother, and Chuck and brings her comic skills to this witty tell-all about her own romantic exploits—cleverly tagged "vacationships"—during the frequent trips she took abroad in her 20s and 30s. Terrified of romantic commitment after the slow dissolution of her parents' marriage, Newman filled the emotional void while traveling by assuming an alter ego she named "Kristin-Adjacent," a "slower, softer, and yes, sluttier" version of who she was at home in Los Angeles. Several months out of the year Newman charged into a dizzying variety of short-term international adventures, mingling with such colorful characters as Rodrigo the Brazilian surfer, Diego the Spanish instructor in Patagonia, Aleg the Russian bartender, and, most important, "Father Juan," an Argentine ex-seminary student with whom Newman had her most lasting and emotionally compelling affair. Newman herself narrates this audio edition with mixed success; the anecdotes are by degrees exhilarating, unbridled, and often quite embarrassing, so the courageous candor of the material lends an air of intimate charm, as if Newman was sharing her stories with a best girlfriend over a shared bottle of wine. However, her delivery is also a bit shrill and grating in places, underlining an essential immaturity and superficiality in the tone of the narrative. VERDICT This is an entertaining, light listen, heavy on broad comic strokes, with little real insight into the places the author visited or many of the people she met. Listeners looking for a good, tantalizing comic yarn will be delighted, but there is little of substance here.—Claire Abraham, Keller P.L., TX
Kirkus Reviews
2014-03-29
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.