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| My Horizontal Life: A Collection of One-Night Stands | 
 enlarge | Author: Chelsea Handler
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $7.82
You Save: $7.13 (48%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  260 reviews
Sales Rank: 197
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 213
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8
ISBN: 1582346186
Dewey Decimal Number: 306.7
EAN: 9781582346182
ASIN: 1582346186
Publication Date: June 6, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: 100% Brand New! - Ships Today! Identical to Amazon's book in every way. Flawless! Not a cheap Remainder or Book Club Copy! *We recommend Expedited Shipping option for much faster mail delivery
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Product Description
In this raucous collection of true-life stories, actress and comedian Chelsea Handler recounts her time spent in the social trenches with that wild, strange, irresistible, and often gratifying beast: the one-night stand.
You've either done it or know someone who has: the one-night stand, the familiar outcome of a night spent at a bar, sometimes the sole payoff for your friend's irritating wedding, or the only relief from a disastrous vacation. Often embarrassing and uncomfortable, occasionally outlandish, but most times just a necessary and irresistible evil, the one-night stand is a social rite as old as sex itself and as common as a bar stool.
Enter Chelsea Handler. Gorgeous, sharp, and anything but shy, Chelsea loves men and lots of them. My Horizontal Life chronicles her romp through the different bedrooms of a variety of suitors, a no-holds-barred account of what can happen between a man and a sometimes very intoxicated, outgoing woman during one night of passion. From her short fling with a Vegas stripper to her even shorter dalliance with a well-endowed little person, from her uncomfortable tryst with a cruise ship performer to her misguided rebound with a man who likes to play leather dress-up, Chelsea recalls the highs and lows of her one-night stands with hilarious honesty. Encouraged by her motley collection of friends (aka: her partners in crime) but challenged by her family members (who at times find themselves a surprise part of the encounter), Chelsea hits bottom and bounces back, unafraid to share the gritty details. My Horizontal Life is one guilty pleasure you won't be ashamed to talk about in the morning.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 255 more reviews...
 Disappointed August 22, 2005
112 out of 176 found this review helpful
The title of the book is severely misleading. It should be titled, "A Collection of Near Misses," or "A Collection Of One Night Stands I Would Have Had If I Had Not Chickened Out Or If The Guy Didn't Change His Mind."
The title of the book leads the reader to presume the book is, indeed, a collection of one-night-stand stories. It is really a collection of guys the author wanted to go to bed with, but then changed her mind about when they got naked, or they changed their mind about her.
The author is a stand-up comic, and no doubt, funny in person, but the book was not funny at all. I was left disappointed and feeling sorry for the guys she teased thinking they were going to have sex, only to have her make a haste exit out of their home or a hotel room.
Then the author had the audacity to complain that she didnt get any sex after each "one-night stand," when it was her decision not to go to bed with each guy.
The author goes to great lengths to glorify drinking and bragging about her getting so drunk and so wasted that she is willing to have sex with anyone, only to chicked out anyway.
If the book is meant to be funny, she missed the mark. It is more a warning to demonstrate what too much alcohol and Ectasy will do to one.
If you must read the book, borrow a copy from a friend or a library. Save your money.
 Woody Allen meets Sex and the City June 29, 2005
52 out of 67 found this review helpful
Hilarious recollection of multiple amorous adventures and misadventures. Remeber when Woody Allen was funny? Well this could be his sister's version of "Everything you always wanted to know about sex but were afraid of asking"
The succession of ever so more improbable sexual fiascos and mishaps, would make Candace Bushnell cringe. Like Sex and the City, but wearing JC Penney shoes instead of Manolo Blahnik's.
A comic tour de force.
Read it, you won't regret it.
 For the ladies... June 30, 2007
41 out of 52 found this review helpful
I love Chelsea Handler. I really do. A huge fan. However, this book is really written for the ladies. Being a gay guy I thought that maybe I could wrap my brain around the stylings of a single female who loves vodka and men. But in the end a lot of the charm and appeal is lost on me...I may love vodka and men but I'm certainly not a single female.
The stories are funny though and written for a quick read. And I think most 20-30 "somethings" will find this quite humorous. I was hoping for more hardcore juice...but most of the time Chelsea just ran short of being a true tramp and was more like a little girl dressing up in mom's heels and make-up.
Simply terrible! March 19, 2006
23 out of 48 found this review helpful
There's a point in My Horizontal Life where a friend suggests to Chelsea that she ought to write a book about all the men she's been involved with, to which Chelsea responds, "What a dumb idea." Yet, Chelsea does write a book about it - and it turns out to be a particularly dumb book. She should have taken her own advice. There are 18 chapters in total (each dedicated to another so-so scenario in Chelsea's sexual life) yet, for a book that's supposed to be about a woman's sexual adventures, Chelsea only actually sleeps with men in about 7 of the chapters. There are a lot of near-misses. Given that this is supposed to be a book about one night stands and `sleeping around', these add up to a lot of non-stories.
Not only is the writing very poor (almost like a 16 year old's account of her summer holidays) but this book ultimately comes across as boring and self absorbed. I was expecting an interesting, involving and intelligent insight into a modern woman's attitude towards sex. This was not it. In fact, Chelsea isn't really doing anything different to what thousands of women of a certain generation are doing. Sadly, however, she comes across as desperate and really rather lost. Most of the time she's drunk - and many of her own stories don't portray her in a particularly good light; not because of the subject matter (after all, people have bought the book knowing what it's supposed to be about) but because she just seems very unworldly and immature. There are points where she chooses not to sleep with men for a variety of reasons (one she determines, through his trousers alone, has genitals that are too big. Another has genitals too small - so she sneaks out of his flat). For a woman who holds herself up as a hedonist and lover of men, these aren't quite the actions of a sexually sophisticated adult. And then there are parts of the books that are just offensive - particularly her description of `midgets'; for example, "Those little midgets have it so easy. Sometimes when I see one, I want to chase it..." It? It??? Followed by, "His mom was a midget too, but his dad was human-sized." Now, politically incorrect humour can be hilarious if handled properly, but this sort of stuff isn't funny, it's just dire. Oh, and Chelsea didn't sleep with this one either because his genitals were too big. Again! She just passed out from excessive alcohol consumption. Again!!!
Really, every sane, mature woman should avoid this book. Trust me - there will be nothing in there that will give you a greater insight into sex in the modern age. If anything, the majority of women have probably been there and done most of what Chelsea's done - just in a more considered way.
 I CAN'T WAIT FOR THE SEQUEL! May 14, 2005
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
I just finished reading "My Horizontal Life" and I have to say, it was the most fun I think I've ever had reading a book. I was laughing so hard at some of these stories that I was calling people up to quote lines over the phone (I know that's annoying if you're on the other end but it had to be done). In fact, when I finished reading it, I picked it back up and read a couple of the stories again.
As a fan of stand-up comedy (the author is a comedienne), I expected the book to be full of jokes and it is, but what I didn't expect is that it would be so revealing, sweet and engaging. By the last page, I felt like I knew the author as well as some of my closest friends.
Whether or not you yourself have had a one-night stand, you will be able to relate to the things that happen to her. Okay, maybe we haven't all dated a male stripper who's "every gay guy's fantasy" but we've all dated someone we sadly discovered is not so bright or who doesn't have a good grasp of our language. Personally, I think even a nun would find this book amusing. But I wouldn't buy it for her. I'd hope she'd just stumble upon it on her own.
I've read many humor book over the years and the problem with a lot of them is that they're just not that funny. This one delivers.
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