We have had a Crazy Ex-Girlfriend shaped hole in our lives ever since The CW series bid us farewell in the spring of 2019. The offbeat, irreverent musical comedy may not have been a ratings hit but it consistently earned critical acclaim and propelled its co-creator and star Rachel Bloom to recognition.

The actress now brings the same brand of wit to her first book, I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are, a collection of amusing essays in which she shares experiences from her personal and professional life.

The theme of not fitting in runs through the book (just as the title – which is a reference to The Little Mermaid – suggests). Bloom talks about everything from her childhood foibles to the process of making her first television series while relaying her thoughts on insecurity and anxiety.

On the personal front, we find out about things like her experience with bullies, both in her youth and as an adult; her struggles with intrusive, repetitively guilty thoughts; and her love life and its many complications due to her “tendency to stay in unhappy situations long after the writing was on the wall”.

With respect to her entertainment career, we see Bloom go from being a theatre kid yearning for acceptance to the “star, co-creator, co-songwriter, music video script writer, and chief donut eater” of Crazy Ex.

Oftentimes, instead of just writing a simple essay, the actress makes things interesting by taking a more quirky approach and peppering some creativity into the chapters. Her romantic history, for instance, is delivered by way of a fairy tale that sees a witch cast a spell on a princess, cursing her to have “a series of unhealthy relationships”, each forbidden in its own way. She writes a poem about being a terrible roommate, dedicates a thank you speech to rejection, and details her past jobs by creating a tongue-in-cheek LinkedIn profile circa 2010. She also comes up with an entire musical about her relationship with musicals (the audio version of which is available online on her website).

There is also a Harry Potter fan fiction about the famous wizard wandering into the Hogwarts Drama Club; a one question personality quiz about an impending lioness attack; a theoretical map of an amusement park aimed at adults; an interview between her thirteen and twenty three year old selves…

Bloom’s take on topics is, in short, creative. She is open, bold, and candid. Her anecdotes can range from embarrassing to touching (an afterword in which she discusses welcoming her daughter into the world while losing her writing partner, the wonderful Adam Schlesinger, during the pandemic, is particularly poignant).

Her style ranges from disarmingly honest to uncomfortably crass (to both these things simultaneously). Her language can sometimes undercut the impact of her insights, especially if you have a low tolerance for smutty and/or toilet humour. Her lack of boundaries can either be charming or cringe-y, and might even leave you wondering if you really needed to know these intimate details about her (the answer to which is often: no, no you did not).

Her tone and selection of topics may not work for everyone, but if you are a fan of the dramedy that made her famous, then you are likely to enjoy this effort as well while gaining a new perspective on the idea of normality.