7 Books for Fans of Broad City

March 19 2015
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Broad City is back on Comedy Central for a second season! The anti-Girls, best friends Abbi and Ilana are once again navigating their midtwenties on the streets of New York City, crashing parties, ditching work, and broadening the narrative of women’s experiences with their hilarious, crass, “sneak-attack” feminism. Over the course of the past season and a half, we’ve gotten to know these characters pretty well—we watched them clean a stranger’s apartment half-nude, after all. But since reading isn’t exactly prominently featured in the alternate world of Broad City, we’re left to our own devices to imagine what kind of books Abbi and Ilana would be into. Of course, fans of the show will love these too!

Friendship
by Emily Gould

Part of Broad City’s appeal is its depiction of female friendship—Abbi and Ilana are inseparable and they know each other better than they know themselves. Their on-screen chemistry is what makes the show. In Friendship, the protagonists are (spoiler!) also best friends, also in New York, and also struggling with things like money and acting like an adult. People magazine calls the book “a wry, sharply observed coming-of-age story for the post-recession era.”

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Friendship
Emily Gould

Part of Broad City’s appeal is its depiction of female friendship—Abbi and Ilana are inseparable and they know each other better than they know themselves. Their on-screen chemistry is what makes the show. In Friendship, the protagonists are (spoiler!) also best friends, also in New York, and also struggling with things like money and acting like an adult. People magazine calls the book “a wry, sharply observed coming-of-age story for the post-recession era.”

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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
by Mindy Kaling

Penned by another comedian with another wildly successful television series ("The Mindy Project"), Mindy Kaling’s hilarious memoir is about growing up the obedient child of immigrant parents and going on to write and act for shows like "The Office." If you think "Broad City" is funny, you will think Mindy Kaling is funny.

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Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?
Mindy Kaling

This humorous memoir is a look at moments throughout Mindy Kaling’s life—from her career as an actress to her interesting dating life to having immigrant parents, she tells stories that many can relate to. She’s hilarious and this book reads like a page out of your friend’s diary.

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What I Know For Sure
by Oprah Winfrey

Oprah is Abbi’s hero. She has a tattoo of Oprah’s face on her lower back and an enormous Oprah poster hanging above her bed. So we feel pretty confident recommending a collection of Oprah’s beloved “What I Know For Sure” columns that she wrote monthly for O, The Oprah Magazine. Oprah’s reflections on joy, resilience, and gratitude all in one volume? Yes, Abbi would definitely have this on her bookshelf.

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What I Know For Sure
Oprah Winfrey

Oprah is Abbi’s hero. She has a tattoo of Oprah’s face on her lower back and an enormous Oprah poster hanging above her bed. So we feel pretty confident recommending a collection of Oprah’s beloved “What I Know For Sure” columns that she wrote monthly for O, The Oprah Magazine. Oprah’s reflections on joy, resilience, and gratitude all in one volume? Yes, Abbi would definitely have this on her bookshelf.

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I Was Told There'd Be Cake
by Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley is different from Abbi and Ilana in a lot of ways. She can uphold a professional career, for one. She calls Manhattan home, whereas the Broad City stars reside in grungier Gowanus. But even when she’s being a bridesmaid or volunteering at the American Museum of Natural History, Crosley’s experiences always have an amusing twist and usually end in disaster. She’s also really funny.

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I Was Told There'd Be Cake
Sloane Crosley

Sloane Crosley is different from Abbi and Ilana in a lot of ways. She can uphold a professional career, for one. She calls Manhattan home, whereas the Broad City stars reside in grungier Gowanus. But even when she’s being a bridesmaid or volunteering at the American Museum of Natural History, Crosley’s experiences always have an amusing twist and usually end in disaster. She’s also really funny.

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The Most of Nora Ephron
by Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron is funny, honest, fearless, and an icon for American women. This volume celebrates all of her major works: her novel Heartburn; the screenplay for When Harry Met Sally; and her magazine journalism from the 1970s, with razor-sharp profiles of figures such as Helen Gurley Brown, Dorothy Schiff, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower. And did we mention that she's funny?

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The Most of Nora Ephron
Nora Ephron

Nora Ephron is funny, honest, fearless, and an icon for American women. This volume celebrates all of her major works: her novel Heartburn; the screenplay for When Harry Met Sally; and her magazine journalism from the 1970s, with razor-sharp profiles of figures such as Helen Gurley Brown, Dorothy Schiff, and Julie Nixon Eisenhower. And did we mention that she's funny?

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo iBooks logo

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No One Belongs Here More Than You
by Miranda July

In Broad City’s interview with Sleater-Kinney on NPR Music, Carrie Brownstein recommended Miranda July’s new novel, The First Bad Man. We’d like to draw attention to July’s acclaimed short story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You. July’s stories and films are known for their whimsy and awkwardness, and Broad City’s colorful, chaotic, absurd version of New York has a degree of that as well.

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No One Belongs Here More Than You
Miranda July

In Broad City’s interview with Sleater-Kinney on NPR Music, Carrie Brownstein recommended Miranda July’s new novel, The First Bad Man. We’d like to draw attention to July’s acclaimed short story collection, No One Belongs Here More Than You. July’s stories and films are known for their whimsy and awkwardness, and Broad City’s colorful, chaotic, absurd version of New York has a degree of that as well.

Amazon logo Audible logo Barnes & Noble logo Books a Million logo Google Play logo iBooks logo Bookshop logo

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How Should a Person Be?
by Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti’s novel is a raw, startling, genre-defying novel of friendship, sex, and love in the new millennium—a compulsive read that Bookforum calls “like spending a day with your new best friend.” You could also use that same exact sentence to describe Broad City. You had us at genre-defying!

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo
How Should a Person Be?
Sheila Heti

Sheila Heti’s novel is a raw, startling, genre-defying novel of friendship, sex, and love in the new millennium—a compulsive read that Bookforum calls “like spending a day with your new best friend.” You could also use that same exact sentence to describe Broad City. You had us at genre-defying!

Amazon logo Barnes & Noble logo iBooks logo

MENTIONED IN:

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