Review: Yes Please

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
Publisher: HarperCollins
Publication Date: October 28, 2014
Pages: 329 (Hardcover)
Genre: Memoir/Humor
Rating: 4/5

Synopsis:

In a perfect world . . .

We'd get to hang out with Amy Poehler, watching dumb movies, listening to music, and swapping tales about our coworkers and difficult childhoods. Because in a perfect world, we'd all be friends with Amy—someone who seems so 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, anyway). Unfortunately, between her Golden Globe-winning role on Parks and Recreation, work as a producer and director, place as one of the most beloved SNL alumni and cofounder of the Upright Citizens' Brigade, involvement with the website Smart Girls at the Party, frequent turns as 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 stories, thoughts, ideas, lists, and haikus from the mind of one of our 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 "the biz," the demon that looks back at all of us in the mirror, and her joy at being told she has a "face for wigs." Yes Please is chock-full of words and wisdom to live by.

Review:

Amy Poehler is undoubtedly one of the biggest names for comedians out there today. Her memoir, however, doesn't really tackle how big of a name she is now. It is barely mentioned and save for the mentioning of George Clooney a few times, she does not hint at her fame at all. This may be considered Poehler's humbling or endearing trait, but I for one wanted to know more about Poehler than she decides to tell in this memoir.

Poehler noticeably does not talk about her divorce with Will Arnett which is understandable and respectable. However, I feel like she left out some big chunks of her life out. She does not go into too much detail about her time at SNL or in Parks and Rec. Instead, Poehler focuses on her beginnings with her exploration into comedy after her graduation from Boston College. It's a fine approach to writing her memoir, but I finished reading feeling as if I didn't get too much new information about her. 

The book is split into several parts, and these are separated by colorful pages of Poehler's advice to her readers. Interspersed between these chapters are pictures from Poehler's life. And then there's color again, along with italics and little annotations written in the margins. If there's a singular drawback in terms of the overall layout of the book, it would be that Poehler seems to have broken up some memories and scattered them randomly amongst each other. The book tends to jump from one moment to the next almost as if it's her thought process while she's writing. 

Despite the scattered quality of the book, I still nonetheless enjoyed the easy read. Poehler has a talent for being funny, and the humor pops up in unexpected places. There is a strong narrative voice that is carried throughout the memoir (and I heard you can actually listen to Poehler read it in the ebook!). Aside from the humorous aspect, Poehler does deliver some more sentimental and serious topics. The interwoven delicacy between serious and funny is well done. Overall, fans of Poehler would enjoy this book.