Book #84: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

I've read Bossypants by Tina Fey, and I read Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling, and when I heard that Amy Poehler was coming out with a book, I definitely wanted to read it too. It's like the holy trinity of female comedians in TV these days. I got on the list at the library and got one of the first copies (the book just barely got published!) and read it yesterday.

On one hand, I really liked this book. I love Amy Poehler (I watched all of Parks and Rec earlier this year) and this book is filled with half-memoir-ish stuff and half life advice, and it all seems pretty solid. I liked the chapters about her childhood and growing-up years, and about her beginnings with working in comedy in Boston, Chicago, and New York, with some really interesting and funny anecdotes about her time in her comedy groups and SNL (although it all sounds completely exhausting and I honestly do not understand how they survive that sort of thing). I love that she had a good childhood and supportive parents and still has a good relationship with her family. And I thought her advice was solid and came from a good place of well-meaningness and happiness. She says good things about the working mom vs. stay-at-home mom debate (that it's stupid and meaningless and everyone can be happy doing what they want) and about body image and being happy with who you are.

On the other hand, I didn't love this book. The whole introduction was about how terrible the whole process has been of writing a book, and how awful she is at writing and how much this has been like pulling teeth. Not just a few paragraphs about it--like 20 pages about it. I was BORED by that by the end, and yet she kept coming back to it throughout the book. I'm sure it was just a tactic to lower our expectations for the rest of the fantastic book, but it was overkill to me. I also thought it was a little odd how much she talked about all the drugs she's taken over the years, considering that they are illegal and that she has young kids who she says she doesn't want to do drugs. The other thing I didn't love about the book was personal and probably based on my own feelings I was having that day. I really and truly cannot believe how much she does and how many projects she has going on and what she has done in her life. The inside flap of the jacket goes on and on about all of Amy's projects and then ends with "So even if you could meet Amy, she probably wouldn't have time for a movie night or girl's night out." Okay, so you are soooo busy and much more important than the rest of us normal people. And I was just feeling so blah about my life and my job (had a bad day yesterday, we'll just say that) that I felt more depressed about my life than uplifted by her stories and advice.