Yes Please
Amy Poehler is a funny person. I don’t enjoy every single thing she has done, but she has certainly dished out some gems. She leads an inherently interesting life, so she’ll inevitably have good stories for her memoir. She’s not a regular mom; she’s a cool mom.
Yes Please covers her cool-motherhood and her work. Poehler graces us with UCB-starter stories, juicy SNL tidbits, and insider knowledge on Parks and Recreation. Yes, please! Keep those coming.
I could read hundreds of pages on the above. Sprinkle in some behind the scenes info on Mean Girls and Broad City and you’ve got Poehler perfection. Unfortunately, while Yes Please does partially appease my longing to learn more about her past projects, there’s also a lot of “filler”. I understand that as an autobiography, the book will address her life as a well-rounded woman, not just her film credits. However, there are several chapters that strike me as forced material to fill space. A chapter on how she has semi-weird sleeping habits? Not particularly original, despite the intermittent funny quips. A chapter on how phones and technology are taking over our lives? Not a hot take.
The weirdest part about her book is her frequent insistence that “writing a book is awful” (Poehler, 195). You get the impression that she doesn’t like the process and would prefer to be working on a script. Not exactly a welcome wagon for people reading your stuff.
I don’t want to hate too hard on her book because my expectation was not that Yes Please is serious literature asking for annotation and deep analysis. It’s a light-hearted book by a self-aware, candid comedian. No, it’s not a contender for the Nobel Prize.
Amy Poehler is often compared to Tiny Fey, her self-proclaimed comedy wife. In May, I reviewed Fey’s autobiography, Bossypants, which I like slightly more than Yes Please. Overall, Yes Please receives 3 out of 5 flames.
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