read: Bossypants (3 stars)

With most celebrities, you either like them or you don't. And with most celebrities, your opinion of them will probably carry over into your reaction to whatever memoir/autobiography/anecdotes they write. I mostly like Tina Fey, so I mostly liked her memoir/autobiography/anecdotes Bossypants, even though it's never clear exactly which of these she has written.

At first I thought this might be an autobiography. I'm sure that's what many people will think it is. But it's soon obvious that Tina's humorous takes and lack of depth, as well as lack of the perspective of age, do not allow this to be an autobiography. For the most part, then, this is a memoir. Except it's not really structured as a memoir either. It's more like a collection of anecdotes reflecting on life topics that happen to cover segments of the author's life from girlhood until now. They will give you a glimpse of who Tina is and how she got here. But because she rarely lets a paragraph go by without trying to give it a humorous spin, you won't really get too close to the real Tina.

There is plenty of humor here. If you like her sense of humor, you will laugh (or at least smirk). There is a bit of memoir here. You will gain a bit of understanding for how she got into show business and gained success. There are a lot of anecdotes here. She does, as you would expect, drop a lot of names. You will get a pretty good idea of how Tina Fey believes she sees the world at this point in time. If you are a fan, you should enjoy this book. I listened to the audiobook version, read (and riffed) by Tina, and this added another dimension to the experience.

View all my reviews on Goodreads