When I was a little girl, my grandfather once told me that when he spoke in front of a group, he often began with, "I know most people start their speeches with jokes, but I don't know any, so let's all think of our favorite joke and laugh." This book reminded me a lot of that joke.

While I don't watch Ellen's talk show, I do really like her and have read her other books. This one seems... gratuitous. One chapter is made up entirely of her making sounds. As in, mememememeeme. Or, bwabwabwa. A few chapters are short, fictional stories, similar to: "A woman walks down the beach, and sees the waves. Hello, waves. END." Several are meandering thoughts, a la her Nemo character. Another handful of chapters are set in a faux meditation class, where she pretends to be your meditation teacher but only leads to you picking out the bothersome parts of your session. Even she seems to realize it's sort of bland - each chapter begins with her exaggerating the number (chapter TENNNNNN! chapter tweeeeenty FIVE!), then launching into the text in a sort of bored voice.

If you're looking for interesting or humorous commentary on the world, on issues, on her life, this book is not for you. If you need to kill 10 minutes at the bus stop each day, this could work.

Chapters I've listened to since last posting:
Ellen ate an apple. (Crunch, crunch. That's it.)
A fake dream.
Ellen saying, "Yes, no, yes. Yes, no."