Miss New York Has Everything

By Lori Jakiela

Her aunt was a nun who popped pills and did time in Narcotics Anonymous. Her father grew up during the Depression, believed he'd be the next Frank Sinatra, and ended up working in the mills. His daughter, Lori Jakiela, spent her suburban Pittsburgh childhood watching Marlo Thomas in That Girl and dreaming of New York City.Instead, she got bad talent shows, a Junior Miss contest, and college in Erie, PA, where the big attraction was chicken wings. But years later, her Big Apple dreams were still going strong. With her twenties becoming a distant memory, Jakiela answered an airline ad promising a NYC home base, high-flying glamour, and three-day layovers in Paris. The reality was a roach-filled apartment in Queens, a polyester uniform cut like a sack, and a life that wasn't quite what she imagined.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 044669553X
• ISBN13: 9780446695534
• Release Date: January 2006
• Publisher: Warner Books (NY)
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Don't miss out on this one!

Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (8/06) Lori Jakiela has written a great novel about her life. Her upbeat attitude is what gives her story so much character. She doesn't have everything going her way, but she manages to keep her sense of humor about the less than perfect events that she experiences. She also maintains a sense of hope that things will get better. Her life story starts with her upbringing in Pennsylvania where her father was a steel worker. He is quite a character - referring to people as cockroaches. Yet, his attitude towards his dogs endeared him to me. Then there is her aunt - a nun with substance abuse problems. As you travel with Jakiela through her life, she decides to become a stewardess, aka flight attendant. A "stewardess" with a Master's degree in poetry! She thinks that this job and the opportunity to live in New York City will be a great adventure. It was an adventure alright, but it brought many lessons with it. Lessons that made me laugh out loud. I really enjoyed this book because while it was very humorous, it also carried a great deal of depth. She makes many statements that really made me think about my own life. For example, "Maybe loss, as the Buddhists say, teaches us how to live in this world. Maybe it changes us for the better, teaches us how to love with our hands open and know that everything is a process of letting go." Through her writing, you can see that she believes this philosophy and practices it. Life becomes a lot easier if you can incorporate her attitude into your own experiences. Another idea that really hit home for me was when she wrote, "We all have moments where we reevaluate our lives, when we wonder just how far we've veered off course, when we make deals with the universe that, should we live through this, we will be better people, more focused, grateful." I make these promises to myself all the time, and then I forget them, until the next great catastrophic event happens and I remember to start making promises to myself again. I recommend this book to everyone. Husbands and wives should both read it. They will have some lively dinner discussions. Readers groups will love it. If you know anyone that is about to take a flight, get this book for her or him. They will gain a different perspective about what it is like to be a stewardess. Actually, everyone on the flight should have it! We all need a good laugh, especially after having to pass through so many stressful security screenings.

Laugh Until It Hurts

First, I had to steal this book from my wife, who kept me up all night because she'd just bust out laughing while reading it. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Well, I kept her up the next night with my own laughter, so now we're even. This book is great. Even more than that, it's very real and complicated. It made me laugh so hard I cried. Parts of it made me want to cry, which also made me want to laugh. This could all happen in the same paragraph, the same chapter. What makes this book so unique is the way the writer can write about the most painful moments and still maintain a sense of humor and perspective. Forget about sleep. Buy this book and stay up all night. It's well worth it.

Hi Flying Prose

So Lori Jakiela was a young woman with a crotchity father who grew up in Pittsburgh, became a flight attendant, and later, a writer and collage professor. So what? The prose is so what. Lori Jakiela is a wonderful writer and it's her prose that keeps you reading this terrific story. It doesn't hurt that she frames her memoir around her relationship with her father. It also doesn't hurt that she has a wonderful sense of humor and an ability to write very good comedy. She even portrays herself, in part of the book, as a jaded and somewhat ugly American in Germany. So she comes off as believable and not as some plastic saint like figure. If you want to fly the friendly skys of great writing, read this book.

Common Ground

One of the most enjoyable books, fiction or non, that I have read in a long time. I finished the entire book in less than a day; it was very difficult to put down. The themes of this book are universal; they apply to everyone. You do not have to be an intellectual to appreciate this book, although the writing is certainly first rate. You simply have had to experience life. That is the common ground that Jakiela and her readers stand upon, something more writers should remember these days. I would like to make a comparison, but I feel that it might be more appropriate to say that this is a writer to which comparisons will be made in the future. Buy it and enjoy.

First Class Seating

This is one of the best memoirs I have ever read. From start to finish, I was deeply impressed-often to the point of visibly shaking my head and/or making vocal noises loud enough to attract my wife's attention-by Jakiela's skills at understated humor, and tenderness without sappiness, and her ability to blend those two qualities with exquisite and devastating effectiveness. Moreover, Jakiela offers a unique perspective on commercial air travel: I will never again board an airplane without remembering Jakiela and endeavoring to behave in a manner that will not leave me skewered on the end of her pen.