Bossypants by Tina Fey
5 stars
Do you ever have that problem when you like a book so much that it becomes hard to talk about? Therein lies the dilemma I face with Bossypants. I know my reviews normally follow a specific pattern: first half I summarize; second half I give my response and analysis. Well, this isn’t going to work for this book because well, it’s just a different book. My whole response to this book was emotional and I loved it.
I guess you could call Bossypants a memoir. Most of it is about Tina Fey’s life. Her early childhood all the way through her rise to tv stardom. But it’s so much more. Yes, she talks about her family and her time working at the YMCA in Evanston (hey, that’s my hometown!) and her interviewing for the writing job at Saturday Night Live, but she also has a whole chapter where she addresses random internet comments that say negative things about her in a lovely sarcastic humor that just rolled right off the page. Then she has a chapter where she basically creates a list of things she wants to tell her daughter. Funny yet sincere and heartfelt. Oh and I can’t forget the chapter where she finds out all the possible things about her body that can be “incorrect” and she lists them off. So you see, this book doesn’t follow the normal bookish patterns.
I knew before buying this book the Tina Fey was a feminist but I was not expecting this book to be SO feminist, if that makes any sense. It was enlightening to say the least. It was infused in almost every chapter. She hits on topics such as breastfeeding, being a woman in show business, dating and more. And by adding some light (and sometimes not so light) humor in at times it really makes for a well-balanced book instead of just feeling like you’re being force fed someone’s political agenda (which even if you agree with their point of view can get annoying).
Honestly, I had no intention of buying this book. I had heard the reviews and everyone had written about how funny it was but I tend to shy away from bestsellers. As much as I love Tina Fey I figured I’d probably borrow it from the library a few years down the line, once the hype died down. However, the book kept calling to me. All the other bloggers seemed to be reading it so I grabbed it. And I’m so glad I picked it up. It was so much more than just a funny book. So so much more.
As I said, this is a hard review to write. I’m sure I haven’t really given you all much to go on other than me gushing over how feminist the book was and how I loved it, but trust me, it’s a good one. I never spend more than $10 on a book and I bought this hardcover in the airport at full price ($26!!) and I don’t regret it at all. I guess to sum up I’ll just leave you with some humorous quotes:
In response to one of her internet “fans” who commented that she was an “ugly, pear-shaped, bitchy, overrated troll:”
“I hate for our correspondence to be confrontational, but you have offended me deeply. To say I’m an overrated troll, when you have never even seen me guard a bridge, is patently unfair.”
In the chapter The Mother’s Prayer for Its Daughter:
“O Lord, break the Internet forever,That she may be spared the misspelled invective ofher peersAnd the online marketing campaign for Rape HostelV: Girls Just Wanna Get Stabbed.”
And from that same chapter:
“And when one day she turns on me and calls me aBitch in front of Hollister,Give me the strength, Lord, to yank her directly into acab in front of her friends,For I will not have that Shit. I will not have it.”
