Review: Bossypants by Tina Fey

I am one of those unfortunate individuals who is a bit late to hop on-board the Tina Fey bandwagon. Sure, I remember her SNL sketches mercilessly mocking Alaska Ex-Governor Sarah Palin, and I have seen clips of this movie or that, but it was not until seeing Admission that I realized how fantastic Tina Fey is as an actress.

Bossypants has been staring at me in beautiful trade paperback form every time I walk into Powell’s the past few weeks, so finally I picked it up from the library in less-glorious old hardcover version. But as my mother used to say “the edition doesn’t matter, as long as the text inside is the same.” Disclaimer: my mother never said those words exactly, but that was the message.

One of the things I like about reading comedians/comediennes books are all the personal stories – events similar to the ones you and I experienced growing up. Yet the way these stories are told are so dramatically and hysterically organized you cannot help but realize how absurd the situations are. And boy, Tina Fey does not dissapoint.

From stories about growing up – being a part of a local theatre company during the summers – and her time at an improv company, Fey delights her captured audience. While some stories were not as funny to me – probably because of my being a man and sometimes not humor about certain topics – many made me at least chuckle.

What I found to be some of her most interesting stories were her tales of her Sarah Palin impressions on SNL. I love seeing and hearing about what goes on in the background, and the Sarah Palin impressions are the main thing I connect Tina Fey with, besides her recent film Admission.

All-in-all, a great book. It was not filled with cover-to-cover laughs, and some of the humor was a bit gendered, but I enjoyed the Tim Allen book when I was 12, so I have no space to complain about that.