Monday, April 25, 2011

Cannonball Read 3 - Review #12 - Bossypants by Tina Fey

There are a few writers who could write about something like salad or the history of calendar publishing and make it hilarious. Bill Bryson is one of them, and even though this is the first book I've read by Tina Fey (her first book ever? Probably, right?) I believe she is another one of those people. She does draw from her own life, which has been colorful and not exactly mainstream, so she has less than boring source material, but even so, the humor and biting wit in her writing makes me confident she could make almost anything funny. Bossypants doesn't read like a typical memoir, and I don't know if it's even marketed as such, but instead Fey tells stories from snapshots of her life from childhood up to the present that paint a picture of her experiences and world view without her having to give a blow by blow account of how she got from here to there. Tina Fey was an awkward child/teenager/adult with a keen eye for observation. She writes in vivid detail and is honest and self-deprecating about her admittedly many faults. She is more than aware of the many things people think and say about her that are unflattering, true or untrue, and she gets her detractors back in the most satisfying way: by being so funny and smart that it takes them a second to figure out that they're the ones being "oh, snapped!" Fey tells stories about her childhood, her family, her early start in improv, the challenges and triumphs of working at SNL during a time of transition, and what it's like to be Tina Fey in all aspects of her life, from work to family. The most satisfying chapters for me were the chapter about her dad and the chapter called "All Girls Must Be Everything" where she talks about the beauty standard for women and the media assault telling us what's wrong with us that we never would have even thought of until they told us. I laughed out loud and even though I'm already a huge fan, I was won over all over again by her self-effacing humor and honesty. It was a really fast read, funny and engrossing. I hope it's not her last.

1 comment:

  1. I also loved this book! I really hope she writes something else because you bet I'd pre-order it. I loved that she actually talked about some serious issues while being funny, too.

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