Single Sundays: While this blog may be focused on reviewing book series as a whole, we can’t forget about the good ole’ standalone novel! On Sundays, I will review a novel that is considered to be a standalone novel. Here is this week’s offering:
Synopsis for Yes Please (from Goodreads):
In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book is full of words to live by.
Review:
I love Amy Poehler! She is one of my all-time favourite comedians and I loved her on SNL. So I figured I would give her new book a shot because it was everywhere I turned. Somehow, I got my name early on the hold list at my library and had it in my hands shortly after its publication.
I have never truly read a non-fiction memoir by a celebrity before. I attempted to read Mindy Kaling’s Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? but I just couldn’t get into it. Which shocked me, because Mindy Kaling is another of my favourite comedians and I love her show The Mindy Project (love isn’t a strong enough word, I think absolutely adore is an apt description). Perhaps I went into the book with too high of expectations but I really think non-fiction memoirs aren’t for me and Yes Please had me reaffirming that hypothesis.
Don’t get me wrong–the book is well done and is exactly what I expect from Amy. It’s fun and I did laugh when I was reading it (not as much as I thought though); and she is very insightful and it felt like her words were very sincere and coming from the heart. You felt like you were sitting in front of her as she told her life story and it is very interesting to hear about.
But, seeing as I am half the age of Amy I felt like some of the references were a little lost on me. Bigger name celebrities I knew and I knew the names of her SNL cast members but some of the people she mentions I have no clue who they are so I felt like I was missing out on something.
The other thing about memoirs is that they are vain–and of course they are, they are MEMOIRS about a single person (in most cases) so they unsurprisingly focus on that one person. But I found that this book was mostly just Amy rehashing her life story and telling her personal philosophy on life and not humour at every turn (which I’m sure a majority of readers expected). Which is cool and all but personal life philosophy is “whatever floats your boat” so I didn’t really find it all that interesting and frankly a little boring. It also probably didn’t help that I was in the middle of exams and needed something a little more fun and dramatic to read to blow off some steam 😉
Conclusion:
This book isn’t a collection of hysterical laughs. It’s more about Amy telling her life’s philosophies while throwing in a few punchlines here and there. I guess I’ve just come to the conclusion that memoirs are just not for me. It has nothing to do with the writing or the person, they just aren’t my cup of tea so I’ll just stick with my fiction novels for now.
Rating: 3/5
Would I Recommend this Book to a Friend: Only if they are a die-hard Amy Poehler fan or they love memoir books.
Shorthand Stats:
Genre: Nonficiton, Memoir, Humour
Recommended for: 18+
Heat Rating: cold
Point of View: First Person, Single
Similar Reads:
- Is Everyone Hanging out Without Me? by Mindy Kaling
- Bossypants by Tina Fey
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