ABOUT THE BOOK (from Amazon):
Do you want to get to know the woman we first came to love on Comedy Central’s Upright Citizens Brigade? Do you want to spend some time with the lady who made you howl with laughter on Saturday Night Live, and in movies like Baby Mama, Blades of Glory, and They Came Together? Do you find yourself daydreaming about hanging out with the actor behind the brilliant Leslie Knope on Parks and Recreation? Did you wish you were in the audience at the last two Golden Globes ceremonies, so you could bask in the hilarity of Amy’s one-liners?
If your answer to these questions is “Yes Please!” then you are in luck. In her first book, one of our most beloved funny folk delivers a smart, pointed, and ultimately inspirational read. Full of the comedic skill that makes us all love Amy, Yes Please is a rich and varied collection of stories, lists, poetry (Plastic Surgery Haiku, to be specific), photographs, mantras and advice. With chapters like “Treat Your Career Like a Bad Boyfriend,” “Plain Girl Versus the Demon” and “The Robots Will Kill Us All” Yes Please will make you think as much as it will make you laugh. Honest, personal, real, and righteous, Yes Please is full of words to live by.
MY REVIEW:
I have mixed feelings about this book. While I do think Amy Poehler does a nice job of balancing humor and stories of her time on SNL and Parks and Rec with serious topics (like her experience working with children in Haiti), something just seemed off to me. Poehler does talk a lot about how hard it was to write the book, so maybe that’s what I felt as the reader – her general lack of “love” for the project. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still worth the read in order to get to know Poehler off-stage and have a few laughs.
Overall, it’s not quite as funny as Bossypants by Tina Fey and doesn’t quite master the balance that I felt with Girl Walks Into a Bar by Rachel Dratch, but it’s cute and funny, just like Amy.
Favorite quote: “talking about the thing isn’t the thing, doing the thing is the thing.”