
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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Crossing the Borders of Time
- A True Story of War, Exile, and Love Reclaimed
- By: Leslie Maitland
- Narrated by: Leslie Maitland
- Length: 18 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Leslie Maitland is an award-winning former New York Times investigative reporter whose mother and grandparents fled Germany in 1938 for France, where, as Jews, they spent four years as refugees—the last two under risk of Nazi deportation. In 1942 they made it onto the last boat to escape France before the Germans sealed the harbors. Then, barred from entering the United States, they lived in Cuba for almost two years before immigrating to New York.
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I didn't want it to end..absolutely wonderful!
- By Ellen on 05-07-12
By: Leslie Maitland
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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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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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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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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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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 charming
- By Jennifer Benton on 02-08-25
By: Ann Leary
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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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The Trauma Cleaner
- By: Sarah Krasnostein
- Narrated by: Rachael Tidd
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Before she was a trauma cleaner, Sandra Pankhurst was many things: husband and father, drag queen, gender reassignment patient, sex worker, small businesswoman, trophy wife... but as a little boy, raised in violence and excluded from the family home, she just wanted to belong. Now she believes her clients deserve no less. A man who bled quietly to death in his living room. Sarah Krasnostein has watched the extraordinary Sandra Pankhurst bring order and care to these, the living and the dead - and the book she has written is equally extraordinary.
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Beautiful, emotional, and perfectly narrated.
- By LitWitWineDine on 06-30-18
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Why I Stayed
- The Choices I Made in My Darkest Hour
- By: Gayle Haggard, Angela Hunt - contributor
- Narrated by: Gayle Haggard
- Length: 9 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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On November 2, 2006, Gayle Haggard's life changed forever when her husband, Ted Haggard, founder of the 14,000-member New Life Church in Colorado Springs and president of the National Association of Evangelicals, was publicly exposed in a scandal. In the days and months ahead, everything in Gayle's life was at stake—her beliefs, her marriage, and her relationship with the church community she had been a part of for more than 20 years.
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Speechless & Overwhelmed
- By Rosa Lydick on 08-30-19
By: Gayle Haggard, and others
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One Way Back
- A Memoir
- By: Christine Blasey Ford
- Narrated by: Christine Blasey Ford
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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On September 27, 2018, Christine Blasey Ford testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee which was considering the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. She described an alleged sexual assault by the Supreme Court nominee that took place at a high school party in the 1980s. Her words and courage on that day provided some of the most credible and unforgettable testimony our country has ever witnessed. In One Way Back, Ford recounts the months she spent trying to get information into the right hands without exposing herself and her family to backlash.
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Waste of my good money..
- By william Story on 01-30-25
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On Trails
- An Exploration
- By: Robert Moor
- Narrated by: Robert Moor
- Length: 11 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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From a talent who’s been compared to Annie Dillard, Edward Abbey, David Quammen, and Jared Diamond, On Trails is a wondrous exploration of how trails help us understand the world—from invisible ant trails to hiking paths that span continents, from interstate highways to the Internet.
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Great to listen to while I was on the trail!
- By Ken Jacobsen on 09-24-24
By: Robert Moor
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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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Boys in the Trees
- A Memoir
- By: Carly Simon
- Narrated by: Carly Simon
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Simon's memoir reveals her remarkable life, beginning with her storied childhood as the third daughter of Richard L. Simon, the co-founder of publishing giant Simon & Schuster; her musical debut as half of The Simon Sisters, performing folk songs with her sister, Lucy, in Greenwich Village; to a meteoric solo career that would result in 13 top 40 hits, including the number-one song "You're So Vain".
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Gorgeous and Sad
- By Adele in CBus on 11-30-15
By: Carly Simon
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Biased
- Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do
- By: Jennifer L. Eberhardt PhD
- Narrated by: Jennifer L. Eberhardt PhD
- Length: 10 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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How do we talk about bias? How do we address racial disparities and inequities? What role do our institutions play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying those inequities? What role do we play? With a perspective that is at once scientific, investigative, and informed by personal experience, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers us the language and courage we need to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time. She exposes racial bias at all levels of society - in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system.
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hoped for more on why bias and how to avoid it
- By Pavan Ongole on 04-04-19
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Hold Still
- A Memoir with Photographs
- By: Sally Mann
- Narrated by: Sally Mann
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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In this groundbreaking audiobook, a unique interplay of narrative and image, Mann's preoccupation with family, race, mortality, and the storied landscape of the American South are revealed as almost genetically predetermined, written into her DNA by the family history that precedes her.
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Brilliant. But what's up with the PDF?
- By ARK on 06-27-15
By: Sally Mann
What listeners say about I'm Laughing Because I'm Crying
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- Amazon Customer
- 11-26-24
Couldn’t put down
Youngmi Mayer is an incredible author and hilarious. Her beautiful and talented storytelling provides the reader insights into what it’s like as a mixed race Korean white woman in Korea and the US. Wish I could read it for the first time again!
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- madisun
- 11-29-24
fun & profound
unique and heartfelt story full of permission to be herself. i learned a lot about Korean culture
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- Extee
- 11-25-24
Visceral
Went into this knowing zero about the author and was just blown away. Highly recommend.
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- MDG
- 02-02-25
Honest and insightful
A good memoir doesn't just tell a story, it puts it in a larger context. Youngmi does this and makes you laugh while you cry. Her greatest talent.
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- Rena O
- 12-16-24
My favorite book this year
I love how she tells her story in relation to her understanding of the stories of her grandparents, parents, ex husband, and son. She is such a great writer and tells a rich story in few and well written words. I'm about to listen to it a second time because it feels like I'm listening to a friend and it's a comforting feeling
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- Mandy
- 04-10-25
Unexpected and fresh
She writes so well and the stories are tender/funny/heartbreaking. She speaks with honesty, even when it’s not easy. I felt inspired. Highly recommend!!!!
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-13-24
Genuine, funny, heartbreaking and healing
The title says it all. Mayer describes the undescribable and is herself laughing and crying genuinely throughout.
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- mike j boeldt
- 01-25-25
Laughed while crying reading this book
Heartfelt, hilarious, and brilliant. A must-read for anyone and everyone who values humor, healing, and humanity. Thank you to the author for your honesty, openness, and hilarity. I wish there were more books like this and will be reading/listening to it again and again.
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- Gabe
- 12-04-24
I laughed ...
while I cried. I too have a hairy butt hole now. Thank you Youngmi.
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- Jennifer Martinelli
- 12-08-24
I knew I would love it and I did
This is a hilarious and heartbreaking memoir and I loved it from beginning to end.
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