Driven by its faith in the transformative power of humor, Elephants in my Room is a lighthearted personal romp. 

Christie Nicholls’s Elephants in my Room is a quirky collection of personal stories. First focused on travel with family, the book opens with a story about a childhood obsession with a dog, Ferdinand, during a summer stay in Brazil; it milks humor from zany childhood logic. Next follow stories about brushing up against the cultural divide between a fun-loving American family and staid Brits during a family wedding in England; there’s also an element of stand-up comedy to Nicholls’s experiences as a non-native speaker in Sweden.

The book’s second section focuses on odd jobs and shares a variety of less-than-successful efforts to earn money. These include babysitting brats, working at a deceitful call center, waiting tables, and dog walking. They are followed by tributes to people who’ve passed, entries that highlight formative experiences while paying homage to influential people, including grandparents and a piano teacher. Misadventures in love close the book. Family coping mechanisms bind the material, including the liberal uses of alcohol, humor, and swearing.

A hilarious story about renting a manual transmission car in Iceland despite having little experience driving a stick shift produces laugh-out-loud moments. Such moments are balanced by poignant accounts, such as of losing a grandmother to Alzheimer’s, and another about overcoming fear of a grandfather to forge a stronger bond. Elsewhere, tones vacillate; a story about a teacher who lives with eighteen cats is ripe for humor, both earnest and flippant. 
Driven by a belief that comedy enables people to “recycle painful energy into something as inexplicably brilliant as a big, full-bodied belly laugh,” Elephants in my Room is a lighthearted personal collection that muses on past struggles—and the lessons learned from them.

​- Clarion Foreword Reviews

Life’s lessons come through loud and clear in this delightful collection of 17 expressive,
pointed, and humorous essays of the author’s life experiences.

Christie Nicholls holds a Ph.D. and works as a stand-up comedian and television-
commercial actress. She describes Elephants in My Room as “a nice little collection of
honest, if not humiliating, true stories (a.k.a ‘elephants’) from my past.” The book is
arranged topically into four parts: Nicholls’ travels, her jobs, people who have died, and
the males in her life.

The author’s essays are amusing and often off-color. For example, when describing her
mother’s bowling pose, she writes: “...Mom would lift a leg, like a graceful dog urinating.”
Indeed, it’s such metaphors—suggestive or not—that make this collection memorable.

The music accompanying a ballet performance she attended was becoming “threatening
and hypnotic, like a mob gathering to do something really big.” Piano books “were more
like cookbooks—where...I’d make something that would one day be digestible to the
human ear.”

Detailing her awkward time as a telemarketer (a short-lived job), she reports: “. . . I had
stumbled onto something profoundly prostitutional [sic]; I could talk to lonely old men and women like a platonic sex phone operator. When they reached climax in our
conversation, I would simply run their credit card and take my cut.”

As each essay unwinds, Nicholls’ reveals lessons learned. Discussing her grandfather,
who was confined to a wheelchair, she sees a teaching moment in his ability to remain
happy, despite all: “I knew that smile. It was fulfillment. The kind of pure, unadulterated
fulfillment that comes from keeping your head up, no matter the circumstances.”

Some readers will likely be offended by the “f-bombs” generously sprinkled throughout,
as well as the author’s explicit depictions of sexual acts and bodily functions. Most,
however, will laugh along with the honesty Nicholls displays as she shares her life, if for
the wonderful imagery alone—fresh and compelling.

- BlueInk Reviews

"ELEPHANTS IN MY ROOM is a witty, vivid, well-written series of true stories about growing up, relationships and family.

In the author’s description at the end of her book, Christie Nicholls refers to herself as a “splendid conversationalist.” Book-form storytelling is necessarily a monologue, but after reading these 17 stories, her claim makes perfect sense.

How could you not want to talk to a formerly canine-loving child who, “created a very clumsy superhero/alter-ego known as ‘Dog Woman,’” only to then reveal her brother’s modified name for that same innocent superhero?

The stories in ELEPHANTS IN MY ROOM center around the texture of human relationships. In telling them Nicholls draws on a breadth of writing craft. She has an ear for dialogue (even when people are too drunk to speak); a love of language; skill at balancing between dialogue, detail and location; and a solid sense pacing. She’s also tops at deriving larger meaning from small moments. 

​Nicholls is often funny in a Mark Twain-social-satire/awkward-teenagers-do-awkward-stuff/and flatulence-is-a-gift kind of way — that’s a lot of ways to be funny. From describing her mother to an audience in “Stand-Up Sweden,” to her relentless observation of a step-grandparent’s eyebrows, to the mordant “The Brentwood Buddhists,” and finally, to the slapstick potency of “The 30-Second Fart,” she’s got all kinds of humor...

So much of this book is grand — “Part III: Dearly Departed,” in particular. This set of four stories about Nicholls’s older relatives, showcase her strength in observing one-on-one relationships. Her delicacy, and her blessed failure to oversimplify humanity are deeply satisfying in these pieces. She uses a purse on the counter and purple, sequined flip-flops perfectly, offering unprofound bits of life that reveal profoundly. In the introduction to ELEPHANTS IN MY ROOM, Nicholls writes, “Why read this book? It’s funny and honest.” It is Nicholls’s honesty that underpins and elevates her wit, tenderness and social observation. She is funny, she is honest and she’s delightful to read.

The 17 stories in Christie Nicholls’s memoir ELEPHANTS IN MY ROOM speak to readers in an infectiously appealing, compassionate, sarcastic, observant narrator’s voice, and are both funny and moving."
~Ellen Graham for IndieReader

indiereader.com/book_review/elephants-in-my-room/

"​Comedian Nicholls’s effervescent debut memoir recounts family shenanigans, adventures abroad, and other entertaining and embarrassing experiences with a mix of humor and humility. The book is split into four sections, each one providing a theme for the stories (or “elephants”) it contains. The first section, “A Broad Abroad,” recalls traveling with her mismatched family. The standout story “I Love English” begins with Nicholls joking about her father’s family crest being “a light-bulb, a middle finger, and an Entenmann’s Danish” as a way of introducing a story about a booze-fueled wedding in England. The “Boys to Man” section recalls her dips into the dating pool, including “Mother Nose Best,” set in Wisconsin, in which Nicholls is determined to prove her mother wrong about her foul-smelling boyfriend.

In every story, Nicholls exhibits a gift for description; as she describes screaming a nonstop litany of curses while incompetently driving a stick-shift rental car through Iceland (“I accelerated and the car cried out ‘help me’ ”), readers will both cackle hysterically and want to tighten their seat belts. Her stories of childhood exude a clear love of family while never sacrificing the absurdity of growing up. If readers are looking for a combination of laughing and crying, the “Dearly Departed” section, filled with heartwarming stories of Nicholls’s grandparents, is sure to deliver. Family photos are given hilarious captions to underline that these stories are as true as they are absurd.
There’s no overall arc to the collection, but each anecdote stands well alone. Readers will admire the fluidity with which Nicholls describes her intensely relatable way of stumbling cheerfully through life. Nicholls’s zeal for storytelling about the everyday proves that any event can form the kernel of a good memoir. She sticks the landing by simply bearing and sharing it all.
Takeaway: This laugh-out-loud collection of anecdotes will delight any fan of funny and heartfelt memoirs."