I'll Have What She's Having

The essays and vignettes collected in I’ll Have What She’s Having trace Chelsea Handler’s work to find joy and fulfillment in her personal relationships. Handler includes anecdotes from her familial, romantic, and personal life to show how intimate connection is multifaceted and creates change. She introduces her desire to establish rich, complex relationships in Chapter 1 when she describes the woman she wanted to become as a little girl. In general, she imagines this woman as someone who will “be able to light up a room, and her light would spread, making others feel brighter, better” (3). By the end of the collection, she has become this woman, someone who has “cast a wide net” and made friends “all over the world” (4). The intervening chapters capture the steps she makes to form authentic connections and to create a loving social network.

The relationships that Handler has with her romantic partners, siblings, nieces and nephews, friends, and her friends’ kids transform her and give her meaning. Before Handler goes to therapy, her relationships are less grounded. She seeks love but hasn’t yet learned how to show others love. Once she learns to love herself, she’s better able to offer care and compassion to others.