
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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Not so much a indictment of country music but a hey you are missing a piece of evidence here
- By Chris Lane on 10-02-24
By: Alice Randall
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At Any Cost
- A Father's Betrayal, a Wife's Murder, and a Ten-Year War for Justice
- By: Rebecca Rosenberg, Selim Algar
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Wealthy, beautiful, and brilliant, Shele Danishefsky had fulfillment at her fingertips. Having conquered Wall Street, she was eager to build a family with her much younger husband, promising Ivy League graduate Rod Covlin. But when his hidden vices surfaced, marital harmony gave way to a merciless divorce. Rod had long depended on Shele's income to fund his tastes for high stakes backgammon and infidelity - and she finally vowed to sever him from her will. In late December 2009, Shele made an appointment with her lawyer. She would never make it to that meeting.
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Tightly-written true crime; excellent narration.
- By Janean Laidlaw on 06-27-21
By: Rebecca Rosenberg, and others
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Confessions
- A Life of Failed Promises
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: A. N. Wilson
- Length: 11 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love (sacred and profane) and his life in Grub Street—as a prolific writer. The audiobook begins with his heart-torn present-day visits to Katherine, now for decades his ex-wife, who has slithered into the torments of dementia. At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self—whether he is flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood.
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Atomic bomb and other gems
- By Charles on 11-27-23
By: A. N. Wilson
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Another Word for Love
- A Memoir
- By: Carvell Wallace
- Narrated by: Carvell Wallace
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Wallace is an award-winning journalist who has built his career on writing unforgettable profiles, bringing a provocative and engaged sensitivity to his subjects. Now he turns the focus on himself, examining his own life and the circumstances that frame it—to make sense of seeking refuge from homelessness with a young single mother, living in a ghostly white Pennsylvania town, becoming a partner and parent, raising two teenagers in what feels like a collapsing world.
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Beautiful
- By 3boys on 04-17-25
By: Carvell Wallace
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Let the Record Show
- A Political History of ACT UP New York, 1987-1993
- By: Sarah Schulman
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Coleman Williams, Sarah Schulman
- Length: 27 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration - and long-overdue reassessment - of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture.
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Narration makes it difficult to enjoy
- By Katrine on 06-28-21
By: Sarah Schulman
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Yes: The Tormato Story
- By: Kevin Mulryne
- Narrated by: Kevin Mulryne
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The music of Yes indelibly shaped the original sound of progressive rock. But the true tale of this landmark band goes well beyond headline-making albums like Fragile and Close to the Edge. In this book, Kevin Mulryne tells the absorbing story of the final Yes album of the 1970s, Tormato, uncovering myriad fascinating twists and turns for the first time.
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A fascinating read.
- By Preston M. Frazier on 10-20-23
By: Kevin Mulryne
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The Foundling
- The True Story of a Kidnapping, a Family Secret, and My Search for the Real Me
- By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, Alex Tresniowski
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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The Foundling tells the incredible and inspiring true story of Paul Fronczak, a man who recently discovered via a DNA test that he was not who he thought he was - and set out to solve two 50-year-old mysteries at once. Along the way he upturned the genealogy industry, unearthed his family's deepest secrets, and broke open the second longest cold-case in US history, all in a desperate bid to find out who he really is.
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Prepare yourself for a journey that will take you to shocking places!
- By OUChris on 04-04-17
By: Paul Joseph Fronczak, and others
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I Have Something to Tell You
- A Memoir
- By: Chasten Buttigieg
- Narrated by: Chasten Buttigieg
- Length: 7 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Throughout the past year, teacher Chasten Glezman Buttigieg has emerged on the national stage, having left his classroom in South Bend, Indiana, to travel cross-country in support of his husband, former mayor Pete Buttigieg, and Pete's groundbreaking presidential campaign. Through Chasten's joyful, witty social media posts, the public gained a behind-the-scenes look at his life with Pete on the trail - moments that might have ranged from the mundane to the surprising, but that were always heartfelt.
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A common yet inspiring and hopeful story
- By Steph on 09-03-20
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I've Tried Being Nice
- (Among Other Things): Essays
- By: Ann Leary
- Narrated by: Ann Leary
- Length: 5 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying—and often failing—to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home bat invasions, an obsession with online personality tests, and the mortification of taking ballroom dance lessons with her actor husband. She describes hilarious red-carpet fiascos and other observations from the sidelines of fame, while also touching upon her more poignant struggles with alcoholism, her love for her family, her dogs, and so much more.
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Funny and witty!
- By HD on 05-12-25
By: Ann Leary
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Full Tilt
- Ireland to India with a Bicycle
- By: Dervla Murphy
- Narrated by: Emma Lowe
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Full Tilt is the inspiring true story of Dervla Murphy's 1963 journey from Ireland to India on an Armstrong Cadet bicycle, and the trials, landscapes, and cultures she encountered along the way. The route takes her through the valleys and snowy mountain passes of Europe and India to the scorching deserts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the metal of her bicycle, Rozinante (named after Don Quixote's steed), becomes too hot to touch.
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Prejudice personified
- By Steve on 09-27-20
By: Dervla Murphy
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Notes on a Silencing
- A Memoir
- By: Lacy Crawford
- Narrated by: Lacy Crawford
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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When Notes on a Silencing hit bookstores in the summer of 2020, even amidst a global pandemic, it sent shockwaves through the country. Not only did this intimate investigative memoir usher in a media storm of coverage, but it also prompted the elite St. Paul's School to issue a formal apology to the author, Lacy Crawford, for its handling of her report of sexual assault by two fellow students nearly 30 years ago.
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Everything about this book is magnificent
- By swimmergal on 08-15-20
By: Lacy Crawford
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You'll Grow Out of It
- By: Jessi Klein
- Narrated by: Jessi Klein
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In You'll Grow Out of It, Jessi Klein offers - through an incisive collection of real-life stories - a relentlessly funny yet poignant take on a variety of topics she has experienced along her strange journey to womanhood and beyond. These include her "transformation from Pippi Longstocking-esque tomboy to are-you-a-lesbian-or-what tom man", attempting to find watchable porn, and identifying the difference between being called "ma'am" and "miss" (" miss sounds like you weigh 99 pounds").
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I like this woman so much!
- By Sarah F. on 07-24-16
By: Jessi Klein
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Split Decision
- Life Stories
- By: Ice-T, Spike, Douglas Century
- Narrated by: Ice-T, Spike, Douglas Century
- Length: 8 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Ice-T rose to fame in the late 1980s, earning acclaim for his music before going on to enthrall television audiences as Odafin “Fin” Tutuola in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. But it could have gone much differently. In this “poignant and powerful” (Library Journal, starred review) memoir, Ice-T and Spike, his former crime partner—collaborating with New York Times bestselling author Douglas Century—relate the shocking stories of their shared pasts, and how just a handful of decisions led to their incredibly different lives.
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An awesome book
- By Cornelius DeMarcus on 11-30-22
By: Ice-T, and others
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The Memory Palace
- True Short Stories of the Past
- By: Nate DiMeo
- Narrated by: Nate DiMeo, Jad Abumrad, Daniel Alarcón, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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The Memory Palace is a collection of tiny, crystalline historical tales that come across like luminous short fiction, and, like Nate DiMeo’s acclaimed podcast of the same name, conjure lost moments and forgotten figures who are calling out across time to be remembered. For fifteen years, Nate DiMeo has turned to the past to make sense of the way we live today, finding beauty and meaning in history’s dustier corners, holding things up to the light and weaving facts, keen insight, wit, and poignant observation into unforgettable tales.
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Simply superb
- By Kathryn on 12-10-24
By: Nate DiMeo
Couldn’t put down
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fun & profound
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Honest and insightful
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My favorite book this year
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Unexpected and fresh
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I laughed ...
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I knew I would love it and I did
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Visceral
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not sure
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Genuine, funny, heartbreaking and healing
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