Monday 8 December 2014

Review: Yes Please! by Amy Poehler

In a perfect world . . .
We'd get to hang out with Amy Poehler, watching movies, listening to music, and swapping tales about our difficult childhoods. Because in a perfect world, we'd all be friends with Amy - someone who seems so much fun, is full of interesting stories, tells great jokes, and offers plenty of advice and wisdom (the useful kind, not the annoying kind you didn't ask for). Unfortunately, between her Golden Globe-winning role on Parks and Recreation, work as a producer and director, place as one of the most beloved Saturday Night Live alumni, involvement with the website Smart Girls at the Party, frequent turns as an acting double for Meryl Streep, and her other gig as the mom of two young sons, she's not available for movie night.

Luckily, we have the next best thing: Yes Please, Amy's hilarious and candid book. A collection of anecdotes, essays, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of America's most beloved entertainers, Yes Please offers Amy's thoughts on everything from her 'too safe' childhood outside of Boston to her early days in New York City, her ideas about Hollywood and showbusiness, the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has 'a face for wigs'. A delight on every page, Yes Please is chock-full of words, and wisdom, to live by.


Review: I was so looking forward to reading this book and let me tell you, it did not let me down. I have found that I enjoy reading autobiographies in audiobooks form and so I downloaded this one using one of my audible credits and settled back for an entertaining listen on my commute. Gosh this book was such fun. I highly reccomend listening to this one on audiobook because you feel partly like you're just having a good old chat with this fabulous lady, and party like you are being entertained at some wonderful stand up comedy event. 

The book isn't linear in structure, it jumps around from time to time covering various aspects of Amy Poehler's personal life and her career. I sometimes prefer this form of writing to a chronological report of someones life, i found the anecdotal style very easy to listen to and I would imagine that it would make a good read as well. The stories that she told were interesting and you could tell that she was just sharing them with her readers, not putting them out there just for sympathy or just for laughs, it was really as if she were just telling you stuff about her life whilst you were both on a long bus journey or something-i really liked this!

The really fab thing about this audiobook was that there was definitely extra content for those of use who had elected to buy the audiobook. Obviously when you buy an audio version of an autobiography, you miss out on the pictorial content that you would get in the hardback edition, but because of this, Amy has added some guest readers and a whole section which she did ,Ive to an audience so you get just as much of a 3d experience as if you had picked up the hardback. 

I know this will be a big xmas gift this year and it came out just in time for all the seasonal gifting but i really recommend you not only buy this book as a gift but also read it yourself because  there is something in this book to entertain anyone and everyone. You will laugh, you will be made to think and you will definitely storm through this book just as quickly as I did. This was a fabulously entertaining read but now you'll have to excuse me whilst I find more funny clips of SNL on YouTube!

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