I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying
A Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Youngmi Mayer
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By:
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Youngmi Mayer
About this listen
From standup comedian Youngmi Mayer, an unforgettable memoir written with “raw, enviable freedom that simply floors you,” interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality in America, navigating a tumultuous childhood in Korea and Saipan, and coming to terms with her parents’ shortcomings (Michelle Zauner).
“Do you know what happens if you laugh while crying? Hair grows out of your butthole.”
It was a constant truism Youngmi Mayer’s mother would say threateningly after she would make her daughter laugh while crying. Her mother used it to cheer her up in moments when she could tell Youngmi was overtaken with grief. The humorous saying would never fail to lighten the mood, causing both daughter and mother to laugh and cry at the same time. Her mother had learned this trick from her mother, and her mother had learned this from her mother before her: it had also helped an endless string of her family laugh through suffering.
In I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying, Youngmi jokes through the retelling of her childhood as an offbeat biracial kid in Saipan, a place next to a place that Americans might know. She jokes through her difficult adolescence where she must parent her own parents: a mother who married her husband because he looked like white Jesus (and the singer of The Bee Gees). And with humor and irreverence and full-throated openness, she jokes even while sharing the story of what her family went through during the last century of colonialism and war in Korea, while reflecting how years later, their wounds affect her in New York City as a single mom, all the while interrogating whiteness, gender, and sexuality.
Youngmi jokes through these stories in hopes of passing onto the listener what her family passed down to her: The gift of laughing while crying. The gift of a hairy butthole. Because throughout it all, the one thing she learned was one cannot exist without the other. And like a yin and yang, this duality is reflected in this whip-smart, heart-wrenching, and disarmingly funny memoir told by a bright new voice with so much heart and wisdom.
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Critic reviews
“Youngmi Mayer’s wit shines as she takes you across a spectrum of emotions, setting you up for heartbreak only to drop-kick you with a laugh. Through an intimate and relatable portrayal of her family’s history, I’m Laughing Because I’m Crying explores all the parts that make us who we are. She’s shown me that there’s a little entitled white guy inside each of us.”—Sohla El-Waylly, New York Times bestselling author of Start Here: Instructions for Becoming a Better Cook
"You should probably get this book just so I don't have to call you up or show up to your house and read to you from it."—Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
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Story
This is a true story about Brandon C. Gandy, who overcame fifteen birth defects, twenty-eight surgeries, a medically induced coma, and cancer, and became the eighth person in the world to have a testicular and kidney transplant. During all of his near-death medical challenges, Brandon persisted; he would remain an athlete and he tackled many different sports. His brave, strong journey sheds light on real-life struggles of what a miracle child has to go through growing up and how he turned his preconceived weaknesses into his ultimate strengths with his endless faith.
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What a Story!
- By Boyle Fam on 11-19-24
By: Brandon C. Gandy
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Munichs
- A Novel
- By: David Peace
- Narrated by: Christopher Eccleston
- Length: 14 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1958, Manchester United was flying high: the best-known soccer team in the world and reigning English champions. But on a snowy afternoon that February, a plane carrying the team back from a European Cup match crashed on takeoff in Munich, killing twenty-three people-including eight Manchester United players and three team officials.
By: David Peace
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Gather Me
- A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me
- By: Glory Edim
- Narrated by: Glory Edim
- Length: 8 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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For Glory Edim, that "friend of my mind" is books. Edim, the daughter of Nigerian immigrants growing up in Virginia, started the popular Well-Read Black Girl book club at age 30, but her love of books stretches far back: to public libraries alongside her little brothers after elementary school while her mother was working; to high school libraries where she discovered books she wasn't being taught in class; to dorm rooms and airplanes and subway rides—and, eventually, to a community of half a million other listeners.
By: Glory Edim
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The Sunflower House
- A Novel
- By: Adriana Allegri
- Narrated by: Barrie Kreinik, Dallin Bradford, Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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In a sleepy German village, Allina Strauss’s life seems idyllic: she works at her uncle’s bookshop, makes strudel with her aunt, and spends weekends with her friends and fiancé. But it's 1939, Adolf Hitler is Chancellor, and Allina’s family hides a terrifying secret—her birth mother was Jewish, making her a Mischling. One fateful night after losing everyone she loves, Allina is forced into service as a nurse at a state-run baby factory called Hochland Home. There, she becomes both witness and participant to the horrors of Heinrich Himmler’s ruthless eugenics program.
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More, please
- By Suzy Brooks on 11-17-24
By: Adriana Allegri
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Every Arc Bends Its Radian
- By: Sergio De La Pava
- Narrated by: Lee Osorio
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Riv—poet, philosopher, private eye—arrives in Cali, Colombia, hoping to find reprieve. Running away from an unspeakable event surrounding his ex Jane, Riv accidentally connects with his cousin Mauro and family friend Carlotta, who asks him to find her daughter Angelica Alfa-Ochoa. No sooner is Riv on the trail when it becomes clear that not only are the cops not looking for Angelica, but they are actively preventing him from finding her.
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Pava never disappoints
- By scarpulla on 11-13-24
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Only Here, Only Now
- A Novel
- By: Tom Newlands
- Narrated by: Amelia Leith
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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After her mother invites a new man to live with them, tensions quickly rise in the cramped house. Gunner is kind but strange, too—a one-eyed shoplifter with more than a few hidden secrets. But when tragedy strikes shortly after, Cora rebels against her small-town existence in search of love, acceptance, and a path to something good. If only she can learn to navigate her grief and everything she thinks she knows about who she is and what she might be capable of, she may finally find the way forward.
By: Tom Newlands
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Episodes
- The True Story of Two Friends & One Diagnosis
- By: Mara Altman, Kat Alexander
- Narrated by: Mara Altman, Kat Alexander
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
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In Episodes, lifelong best friends Kat and Mara take listeners on an unfiltered journey through friendship, mental illness, and survival. Kat, a successful professional, is preparing for marriage and motherhood. On her fourth round of IVF, it happened—a frantic call to Mara. Mara comes over to find Kat, her friend of 25 years—the one who'd always been levelheaded, hilarious, and over-the-top thoughtful—trying to jump through a window.
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Just listen!
- By AJ on 11-17-24
By: Mara Altman, and others
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Deadly Animals
- A Novel
- By: Marie Tierney
- Narrated by: Olivia Dowd
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Ava Bonney is a compassionate and studious fourteen-year-old girl with a dark secret: she has an obsessive interest in the macabre. She is fascinated by the rate at which dead animals decompose. The highway she lives by regularly offers up gifts of roadkill, and in the dead of night Ava loves nothing more than to pull her latest discovery into her roadside den and record her findings. One night, she stumbles across the body of her classmate and, fearing that her secret ritual could be revealed, she makes an anonymous call to the police.
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“𝘎𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘣𝘢𝘥 𝘥𝘰𝘨𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘺𝘰𝘶’𝘳𝘦 𝘤𝘳𝘶𝘦𝘭 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮.”
- By A.B. | @kindaspooky_reads on 11-15-24
By: Marie Tierney
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Those Opulent Days
- By: Jacquie Pham
- Narrated by: Ryan Do, Graham Halstead, David Lee Huynh, and others
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Duy, Phong, Minh, and Edmond have been best friends since childhood. Now, as young men running their families’ formidable businesses, they make up Saigon’s most powerful group of friends in 1928 Vietnam’s elite society. Until one of them is murdered. In a lavish mansion on a hill in Dalat, all four men have gathered for an evening of indulgence, but one of them won’t survive the night.
By: Jacquie Pham
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April Storm
- A Novel
- By: Leila Meacham
- Narrated by: Jennifer Pickens
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Kathryn Walker enjoys an enviable life. Her husband is an accomplished doctor, her children are bright and successful, and she devotes herself to charity work that uplifts her Suburban Colorado community. Settling into a new year, her life couldn’t be better. . . Until April.
By: Leila Meacham
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The Magnificent Ruins
- By: Nayantara Roy
- Narrated by: Deepa Samuel
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
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Lila De is on the verge of a career breakthrough when she gets a call from her mother in Kolkata, informing her that she’s inherited her family’s sprawling estate–so she returns home after a decade with no contact. Her extended family isn’t so easy to win over, and to make matters worse, Lila is caught between her old boyfriend and her occasional lover–her star author–who suddenly wants to define the relationship. As Lila come to terms with both past and present, suppressed family secrets emerge, culminating in a shocking act of violence. Lila has no choice but to finally address her family.
By: Nayantara Roy
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We Shall Be Monsters
- A Novel
- By: Alyssa Wees
- Narrated by: Valerie Lohman, Zura Johnson
- Length: 11 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Gemma Cassata lives with her mother in an isolated antiques shop in Michigan, near a seductive patch of woods concealing an enchanted gateway to fairyland. Gemma knows she’s not supposed to go into the woods—her mother, Virginia, has warned her multiple times about the monsters that lurk there—and yet she can’t resist.
By: Alyssa Wees
What listeners say about I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- steppingonlegos
- 11-17-24
Loved everything about this book
The story of her life is so well told with just the right level of self deprecation and without hubris that often annoys me in memoirs. I laughed so much, cried a whole lot, learned a lot, and thought about things in new ways. The author reading her own book was the cherry on top. The way she does other peoples voices made me laugh every time. Even the credits at the end made me laugh. I haven’t finished an audio book so quickly maybe ever?! It was just such a pleasure to look forward to listening to every spare minute I had.
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- Anonymous User
- 11-17-24
Truly full of tears and laughter.
So heart full, I’m at a loss of words. Still crying. Thank you. I’ve been following Youngmi on social media for only about a year and her candor is so captivating. I can’t say more right now because I’m still pretty tearful
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