Bossypants by Tina Fey

In her acceptance speech for Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Tina Fey announced that she was proud to make her home in "the 'not-real America'." It is perhaps that healthy sense of incongruity that makes the head writer, executive producer, and star of NBC's Emmy Award-winning 30 Rock such a cogent observer of the contemporary scene. Bossypants, her entertaining new memoir, shows that strangeness has been her constant companion. Fey's stories about her childhood in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania are only appetizers for LOL forays into her college disasters, honeymoon catastrophes, and Saturday Night Live shenanigans. Most funny read of the month; the best possible weekend update.


My take:  Fey's book, Bossypants, is part memoir, part philosophical, and part stand-up comedy.  Tina Fey is funny, charming, disarming, and, at times, crude.  She writes about her formative years which were middle class and mostly unremarkable yet somehow written that any teenager of the 80's will relate to and laugh out loud.  


Also following in mostly chronological order, Fey discusses her rise to SNL actress and producing 30 Rock.   Written with wit and intelligence, her personality is always apparent.  It will not have a completely broad appeal and it doesn't hurt to pull up a YouTube video of Fey doing her part as a patriotic American by providing the best political parody I've ever seen of a certain Alaskan governor.  


Not a clean read however, Fey does not rely on potty humor to score points.  She is truly funny standing on her own two feet.  She's also gained my respect by not only being the accomplished career woman but also balancing her life as a wife and mother.  


And she's funny.  Very, very funny.  Did I already say that?