Bossypants
Ratings609
Average rating3.8
Tina Fey is one of the funniest people on the planet. She is my favorite SNL head writer and a comic that I've always admired for both her performance skills as well as her writing skills. Knowing that she was responsible for turning out week after week of sketch television in her time, as well as movies and 30 Rock, my expectations for her memoir were very high. Luckily, she not only met them but exceeded them by a large margin. A wonderful book.
I enjoyed this book for its insight into Tina Fey's career on SNL, the beginning of 30 Rock, and, especially, her portrayal of Sarah Palin. I wasn't as interested in everything that came after like her musings on motherhood and family Christmas traditions.
Tina Fey is the most fantastic person alive, and her stunning and hilarious personality shines through with every word. As an added bonus, the audiobook version is read by Fey herself!
Book had some definitely laugh out loud moments... but no real break throughs on the world. The book lacked the spontaneity of comedy and I feel would have made a fantastic conversation over dinner, but I was a little disappointed and felt something was missing from the book.
Tina Fey being your elder sister, mentor and overall a badass while sharing her life story makes for a lovely book to read!
I mean, it's Tina Fey. If I had any criticism of this book it's that it was written over a decade ago and I'd love to hear more from Fey about ending 30 Rock and life after her SNL/30 Rock run. But it remains a delightful and funny read.
I found it awful hard to get through this for reasons of my own and perhaps have nothing to do with the book.
I read it around 90% before giving up. I have no idea why I've had this on my tbr for reading the blurb now I realise there's nothing about it that interests me and I'm just not the target audience for it. I picked it up because it's tagged under humour and comedy but again, I'm beginning to realise American humour might not be my cup of tea. And finally, I chose to pair-read this with Mornings in Jenin which is at the polar opposite end and the subject matter of the latter made me wish to throw this one and its mediocrity somewhere far away.
i enjoyed this a lot! i think there were parts of it that definitely dated the book and possibly didn't age well but there were also some that aged incredibly, such as fey making a joke about a writers/actors strike coming in the future due to not getting internet residuals. i would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to someday head into the entertainment industry.
Good, enjoyable book. I didn't expect much, but the first quarter or so of this book is pretty rough. The problem with memoirs, sometimes, is specifically celebrities, just think anything about their lives is more interesting than anyone else. That's not automatically true. Tina struggling with awkward friend relationships between gay guys, and basically anything in this book before she got into the comedy business, just isn't interesting. My favorite autobiographies, Bob Cranstons and Malcolm X's, both understand that they aren't going to be interesting just because of who they are. Their lives have to be interesting. And Tina Fey's caterer is interesting, so does her personal life during her career, but you gotta kind of choose what is interesting about your life and what isn't. I think this book is too much of a diary, than memoir at times. But, Tina Fey is funny. And even though I'm an avid SNL hater (but 30 Rock fan), the SNL stuff is very interesting. And when she dives into motherhood and sexism in the last part of the book, it has very little to do with her career, and manages to be interesting.
It was entertaining and educational :-D
To anyone who says women aren't funny, I say “Ok, whatever. Next!” There are plenty of funny women around, and people who work professionally with funny know this. If women weren't funny, no one would know who Lucille Ball is. That you don't know, proves only that you are an idiot.
I'd love to give this book a 3.5 rating.
I listened to the audio version, which made me laugh out loud. I loved getting to know Tina Fey—as a person, a writer, a producer, and a mother. It was an enjoyable listen.
That said, it is apparent a few times this book is from 2011. Some jokes and comments haven't aged the best, like certain SNL sketches or episodes of 30 Rock.
Overall, I was pleased with this book (I borrowed the audiobook from the library) and think audiobooks are a great approach to reading books by comedians, especially. I liked it enough that I would love another book by Fey, picking up where she left off.
I enjoyed the insights into the television industry, getting to see them through Tina Fey's lens. But in general, I didn't find the book as funny as I'd hoped. It was fine; I just wasn't enamored.
Listened to the audiobook for this which was a nice experience, but I found the story unexciting. Tina's comedy is entertaining as always, and it only gives a small insight to her journey through the industry. Would recommend for a casual listen but it isn't anything groundbreaking.
Hillarious, edgy and downright savage.
Tina Fey straight up roasts a bunch of haters on the internet in the middle of the book.
From her time as a writer on SNL to creating the show 30 Rock, she seems to portray writing a pilot of an episode as an easy job!
Another audiobook that reaffirms, comedians write the best biographies.
Legitimately laughed out loud at moments. Listened to the audiobook, which was an awesome choice. She is a great narrator.
I listened to the audiobook from the library for this, it adds a lot since Tina Fey herself narrates, doing impressions and sarcastic voices and all that.
There are some interesting insights into 30 Rock and SNL, but a lot of the book deals with her growing up as a young woman and is written to be relatable to other women, and while it was entertaining in parts, I definitely felt like I was missing something since I'm outside of the target audience.
A lot of her jokes are borderline uncomfortably stereotypical as well, be it race or sexual orientation... Not always offensive, sometimes just thrown in for cheap laughs. I found it a bit off putting.
Overall, Fey is charming enough that this works, I was just expecting more.
I enjoyed getting to know Tina through her story. This book made me burst out in laughter several times. I would recommend to anyone who loves comedy.
Actually a really entertaining book especially if it is in audio format. Read by the author herself, it's full of personality and is a good biography on one of the most influential writers in television.
I listened to the audiobook version read by the author.
Parts of this book had me laughing aloud. Tina did great with the voices and characters in her reading. She had some great advice. There were parts that I didn't love. A number of pieces just sounded like complaints. She's definitely somebody you don't want to anger. For that reason, I got the impression she'd be the boss you feared instead of your new best friend.
I did enjoy this more than Amy Poehler's audiobook, but didn't love it nearly as much as I loved Mindy Kaling's books.
For someone who is not a self-proclaimed “fan” of Tina Fey, I saw surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. Witty, honest, entertaining.
I did not read the book; rather, I listened to it on a Playaway from the library. I'm confident that I made the right choice because the author narrates the book, giving the stories real life. I would not have been able to hear the stories in her voice. Overall, it's funny and entertaining - I loved her unsolicited advice and opinions, no nonsense self-deprecation, and stories about family and love and learning. I did not love the detailed stuff about particular shows that feel too...too, um, close to the shows. Since I've never seen 30 Rock, I couldn't understand any of the discussion about the writers and actors and their MVP jokes. It felt like a list...a list that your friend is just rattling off about work or their kids that you just don't care.
Pick up the audio book if you want to laugh a little and are either: a) madly in love with all the shows that Tina Fey has been involved with or b) able to happily ignore the parts that will be boring to you.