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Bossypants

Tina Fey

3.95 · Rating details · 732,600 ratings · 37,415 reviews

Before Liz Lemon, before "Weekend Update," before "Sarah Palin," Tina Fey was just a young girl with a dream: a recurring stress dream that she was being chased through a local airport by her middle-school gym teacher. She also had a dream that one day she would be a comedian on TV.

She has seen both these dreams come true.

At last, Tina Fey's story can be told. From her you ...more

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Kindle Edition, 283 pages

Published April 5th 2011 by Reagan Arthur Books

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May 10, 2011 RandomAnthony rated it it was ok

Tina Fey's Bossypants was a disappointment. I don't know that expecting much from a comedy writer's cash-in big-font-with-pictures essay/memoir...thing...is fair, but I've been a Tina Fey fan since 30 Rock began, ready to trust her literary aspirations, and even to me this book barely scratches onto the two star plateau.

What did I expect? Well, it's probably easier to explain what I didn't expect. I wasn't counting on a sour, muddled, defensive screed against anyone who pissed off the author in Tina Fey's Bossypants was a disappointment. I don't know that expecting much from a comedy writer's cash-in big-font-with-pictures essay/memoir...thing...is fair, but I've been a Tina Fey fan since 30 Rock began, ready to trust her literary aspirations, and even to me this book barely scratches onto the two star plateau.

What did I expect? Well, it's probably easier to explain what I didn't expect. I wasn't counting on a sour, muddled, defensive screed against anyone who pissed off the author in the last thirty years. I wasn't hoping for forced, obvious stories about the professional discrimination in Fey's history. I wasn't looking forward to insecure ramblings about the long hours she put into Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock. And I definitely wasn't expecting all of the above to be sugarcoated by a combination of weak, insecure meta-analysis and self-conscious “oh, I'm really not that great” coverups.

You know why Bossypants bugged me? Tina Fey has nothing for which to apologize. She's smart, she's funny, and she's talented. So I assume this book had some sort of cathartic impact and she needed to get this bile out of her system. Bossypants gets credit for three short, quality sections. First, Fey tackles the “what's that scar on your face?” question right up front and follows with some funny, interesting commentary on how she can gauge people by how they respond to the scar. Second, she answers a few critical emails/blog comments as a “question and answer” chapter. Third, she walks the reader through a detailed analysis of the whole “I look like Sarah Palin” era. I read this book quickly, over two nights, and while Bossypants is well-written, for the most part, the subject matter's dour nature left me cold, oh, 75% of the time.

Listen. I didn't pick this book up whispering, under my breath, “Make me laugh right NOW, Tina Fey! Dance, monkey, dance!” But I feel like Tina Fey wrote this book for 1) young women she's trying to inspire, and 2) all the people who hate her who will never read this book, anyway. Maybe 41 year old white guys weren't her target audience. I can live with that. I'll still watch 30 Rock, though, and not just because she's hot. I just hope next time Fey writes a better book. ...more

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Mar 01, 2014 Patrick rated it it was amazing

Shelves: books-i-would-blurb

The best audiobook I've listened to in a long, long time. And that's saying something.

I ended up picking this up because when I sent up a signal flare on Twitter, it was the most recommended book by far.

Now I see why.

1. The narration was exceptionally good. (I like autobiography being read by the author, but not all authors are good narrators.)

2. It's legitimately funny.

3. It's legitimately thoughtful and insightful.

I'll also say that I read this book cold. I didn't really know who Tina Fe ...more

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Mar 01, 2014 Wil Wheaton rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I'm listening to the audiobook and it's even better than the print.

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Feb 01, 2011 Gail rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorite-authors, memoir

I honestly cannot remember the last time I laughed this hard reading anything (only a Jonathan Tropper novel or a Dave Sedaris collection comes close). I finished the other night with wet cheeks from the tears that'd escaped my eyes. The bed had been shaking I was laughing so hard!

So what's to love about "Bossypants," besides everything? For starters, how Tina just tells it (and by "it," I mean everything from working at SNL to impersonating Sarah Palin) like it is. She's got a fierce feminist I honestly cannot remember the last time I laughed this hard reading anything (only a Jonathan Tropper novel or a Dave Sedaris collection comes close). I finished the other night with wet cheeks from the tears that'd escaped my eyes. The bed had been shaking I was laughing so hard!

So what's to love about "Bossypants," besides everything? For starters, how Tina just tells it (and by "it," I mean everything from working at SNL to impersonating Sarah Palin) like it is. She's got a fierce feminist streak in her, but it's a feminism that exhibits itself in her trademark no-bullshit kind of way. It's more or less the message of, "I will be who I want to be and I do not care if you like it". Oh, and she's quick to call other women out for being catty — while, at the same time, being the first to admit she's played that card plenty of times in her own past.

And that, perhaps, is what makes Tina Fey so gosh darn likable. She IS us, right down to admitting her faults. You have to laugh reading chapters like "Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That" (in which Tina breaks down what a photo shoot is REALLY like) because you think, "YES! That is exactly what I thought it'd be like!" What I loved most about this book is Tina's voice can be heard through the whole thing. That's not an easy thing for an author to do, but you feel as though Tina is reading these stories to you (fan girl I am, I still want the audio version so, you know, Tina actually CAN read these stories to me!)

Personal highlights:
• The chapter on her dad, "That's Don Fey" ("How can I give [my daughter] what Don Fey gave me? The gift of anxiety. The fear of getting in trouble. The knowledge that while you are loved, you are not above the law.")
• Her chapters on being very very skinny and being a little bit fat— brilliant essays on women and weight shared in a way I think only she could nail.
• She has a girl crush on Amy Poehler and a work crush on Alec Baldwin (whom she gives way too much credit for the success of 30 Rock, IMO).
• She refuses to hire/work for jerks and she's not above using this book to get revenge on those who've criticized women's ability to be funny (on the success of the Sarah Palin-Hilary Clinton sketch she did with Amy: "That night's show was watched by 10 million people and I guess that director at The Second City who said the audience "didn't want to see a sketch with two women" can go shit in his hat.")
• She writes lines that seriously just make you bust a gut: "Do I think Photoshop is being used excessively? Yes. I saw Madonna's Louis Vutton ad and honestly, at first glance, I thought it was Gwen Stefani's baby."
• The chapter on her attempt to film a scene with Oprah, play Sarah Palin for the first time on SNL and plan her daughter's 3rd Peter Pan-themed birthday party ("By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your f*cking life")
• Her thoughts on parenthood and struggling to breastfeed and why she refuses to take guilt from (her words, not mine) "Teat Nazis"
• And finally, a chapter that struck a chord with me in those final pages, "The Mother's Prayer For Its Daughter," because, dang it all, Tina does what so few can and it's write something that can be so beautifully poetic and LOL funny at the same time. ("First, Lord: No tattoos. May neither Chinese symbol for truth nor Winnie-the-Pooh holding the FSU logo stain her tender haunches.")

So yeah, it's brilliant. It's hilarious. JUST GO READ IT ALREADY! haha

...more

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Mar 01, 2018 Miranda Reads rated it liked it

Shelves: audiobook

Tina Fey. American Icon.

Some people say, “Never let them see you cry.” I say, if you’re so mad you could just cry, then cry. It terrifies everyone.

I really appreciated how this memoir had a good mix of heartwarming anecdotes, comedic happenstances and career musings.

While I am not as familiar with her SNL and early career, this book was fun and easy to listen to.

As with many a memoir, we start with her childhood love of comedy and processed to her current-day adventures (or perhaps more ac ...more

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May 20, 2011 unknown rated it liked it

Shelves: 2011, ha-ha-hee-hee-ho-ho, library-books, non-fiction, vote-getters

Sure, you could read Bossypants. Provided you like all that self-deprecating "I'm Tina Fey and I am enormously successful and I am thankful for that, but at the same time I still struggle with being a working woman with a real life, because it is so weird that I am a media icon when I still really think of myself as an unpopular high school theater dweeb, and isn't life weird, like when I was seen as a major influence during the last election because I kind of look like Sarah Palin?" stuff.

Perso ...more

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Mar 01, 2012 Kristen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who finds Dave Barry 'too edgy'

Recommended to Kristen by: Someone else's idea of a 'beach read'

Shelves: funny, biography

First, I must preface this two star rating by saying that since Goodreads does not allow zero stars I'm forced to reserve my one star ratings only for very special pieces of shit. Secondly, at no time while reading this did my blood alcohol content drop below twice the legal limit and even that hardly made this book tolerable.

I wasn't expecting much, obviously, but this "book" fails to live up to even the exceeding low standards of airport bookstores. I liked Tina Fey before I read this book. ...more

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Jan 14, 2015 Catriona (LittleBookOwl) rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobook

Thoroughly enjoyed listening to this!

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Dec 08, 2016 Fabian rated it liked it

Meager...! The degree of insight here is microscopic at most. Anecdotes--those that matter to us, TV/film buffs of the world--are soooo ridiculously scant! Its akin to ridiculing a very unique life with a distanced neverwarm life story. It's unfair; all of it farcical with no pathos at all. The chuckles themselves fail to achieve the expected Cheshire Cat grin madness usually achieved by the brilliant "Weekend Update" host. This was unexpectedly underwhelming to me. Impersonal, cutesy, with a si ...more

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Apr 13, 2011 Sarah rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: memoir

Three and a half stars. I think Tina Fey is awesome. I think this is a slight but solid book. Her authorial voice sounds exactly like her speaking in my head. It's sometimes funny, sometimes self-deprecating, sometimes empowering. It spends more time than one might expect on some things, and no time on others. I think she tried to skirt a line between memoir and humor essayist that is a difficult one to skirt. I think it's an easier thing to do if you're David Sedaris and nobody has specific sto ...more

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May 16, 2011 Will Byrnes rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: comedy-satire, nonfiction, biography

Big Tina Fey fan here. I have always enjoyed her work on SNL and have seen almost every episode of 30 Rock. I have seen some of her movies, not all. She is very definitely funny and smart. Her Sarah Palin kills. So what might one expect from a Tina Fey book? One of two things, either a straight ahead comedic book with plenty of anecdotes, jokes and maybe a bit of behind-the-scenes info, or a personal memoir, with detail about her background. I felt that Fey committed to neither fully and wound u Big Tina Fey fan here. I have always enjoyed her work on SNL and have seen almost every episode of 30 Rock. I have seen some of her movies, not all. She is very definitely funny and smart. Her Sarah Palin kills. So what might one expect from a Tina Fey book? One of two things, either a straight ahead comedic book with plenty of anecdotes, jokes and maybe a bit of behind-the-scenes info, or a personal memoir, with detail about her background. I felt that Fey committed to neither fully and wound up producing half of both in a book that was inconsistent and at times very thin.

After reading this book, do you feel that you know Fey any better than you did before? Sure there are some details about this and that, and she does address internal conflicts around work-vs-family, but my take is that this was all very surfacy material and did not really get much, if at all, below the skin. As a memoir I found it very unrevealing. There is the matter of the scar. She tells us nothing. And tunes out those who ask. Doesn’t it make you think there is something there? A little kid is harmed so violently and she has nothing to say about it? Really? Had no effect on her growing up? Another sore point was the minimal info offered on her relationship with her father, Don Fey, who was clearly a very powerful figure in her life. Colin Quinn, having just met the guy, was impressed. “Your father doesn’t fucking play games. You would never come home with a shamrock tattoo in that house.” Yet TF offers us very little about him and virtually nothing about how his personality affected her growing up.

There was definitely some fun behind-the-scenes material here, most especially in her chapter on staff urination practices. I felt that her portrait of life in Second City was thin. Re 30 Rock, nothing on Alec Baldwin, really? We assume that they got to know each other when he hosted SNL, but how did it come to be that she wanted to write a sit-com that he starred in? Nada. Thin. But plenty of respect and admiration for Lorne Michaels and several of her workmates. That offered at least a hint of heft.

Some chapters function mostly as short comedic bits. In one she responds to hostile e-mails that certainly could have been real, although one wonders. But real or written it was rather low-hanging fruit.

She does allow some warts to dot the portrait. Basically stealing a job from a lifer at the Y was a pretty crappy thing to do in her early years. It makes one see TF as someone who gets what she wants no matter who she hurts. And she certainly seems to have had a remarkable run of success. One wonders if there are more wounded and dying left on the field of battle. How much has luck played a part in her achievements? In terms of how she functions in the world as a competitive person I felt that we got only the very tip of the TF iceberg.

She points out more than a few of the gender-bias barricades she and other female writers and comedians have had to hurdle. That was one of the strengths of the book, as was her conflicted feelings about parenting versus work.

Many years ago I knew a fellow who worked at one of the main New York comedy clubs. He made it pretty clear that, as a group, comedians were “not nice people.” Tina Fey may or may not be a nice person. I did not get a strong enough sense to overcome my predisposition. She is certainly very smart, talented and funny. I would like to know more about her, but this book is not the goto source for that. My sense is that TF is not gonna let anyone too close, not show too much, other than to her best buds and family, and who knows, maybe not even them.

In a way, I felt the book resembled SNL. In pretty much every production of the show, there are some good bits and some that fall flat. I expect there are more publications ahead for Fey. Hopefully the next one will offer a better overall product, with heftier content.

PS - One quote I particularly enjoyed:

When I was a kid there was a TV interstitial during Saturday morning cartoons with a song that went like this: “The most important person in the whole wide world is you, and you hardly even know you." You’re the most important person! Is this not the absolute worst thing you could instill in a child? They’re the most important person? In the world? That’s what they already think. You need to teach them the opposite. They need to be a little afraid of what will happen.

I'm with you on this one, sister. ...more

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Apr 09, 2011 Aldrin rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Who said women aren't funny? A lot of people, apparently, most of them men. One of these was Christopher Hitchens, the controversial journalist who published an essay in Vanity Fair titled, quite plainly, Why Women Aren't Funny . To this and to the dozen other polemics written about the perceived humor gap between men and women, Tina Fey, in her new book called Bossypants, says, "We don't fucking care if you like it." She adds,

Unless one of these men is my boss, which none of them is, it's irre

...more

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May 13, 2011 Kemper rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2011, humor, biography, non-fiction, tv-movies

There’s a chapter in this book where Tina Fey is describing the hectic week that culminated with her filming scenes of 30 Rock with Oprah Winfrey, then rushing to get to the Saturday Night Live studio for her debut performance as Sarah Palin all while she was still making last minute arrangements for her daughter’s birthday party. In between takes, Tina was watching You Tube clips of Palin to work on the voice while holding her daughter and Oprah was asking with genuine concern if she’d have tim There’s a chapter in this book where Tina Fey is describing the hectic week that culminated with her filming scenes of 30 Rock with Oprah Winfrey, then rushing to get to the Saturday Night Live studio for her debut performance as Sarah Palin all while she was still making last minute arrangements for her daughter’s birthday party. In between takes, Tina was watching You Tube clips of Palin to work on the voice while holding her daughter and Oprah was asking with genuine concern if she’d have time to get to SNL and rehearse. As Tina puts it:

“By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.”

What makes that line extra funny is that while Fey writes about the long hours and stress of doing her TV show and movies, that she went ahead and wrote a book, too. (I think that while she may have had some help that Tina did the heavy lifting here without ghost writers because it’s such a personal story with her style of humor all over it.) The book is called Bossypants because it’s mainly a tongue-in-cheek account of how she became a success and her feelings about her career.

As you’d expect, it’s extremely funny with several laugh out loud lines and stories. My favorite chapter was the description of what it’s really like to be the subject of a professional photo shoot for a magazine and how being pampered by hair and make-up professionals while everyone tells you how great you are makes it a bit disconcerting to go home and cook macaroni for your kid.

Fey has a lot of fun pointing out her own contradictions. She’s a working woman who is irritated by the double standard of being asked about a being a successful boss and mother when no one thinks twice about successful fathers, but she still feels guilty at the time she’s spent working instead of with her daughter. She’s mocks her own appearance relentlessly but is willing to put herself on magazine covers in tight dresses. She considers herself a poor actor yet stars in a TV show. She’s often insecure and shy, but refuses to be pushed around by anyone. It’s all of these elements and her willingness to mine them for laughs that make this such a funny memoir.
...more

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Oct 08, 2015 Clumsy Storyteller rated it it was ok

Shelves: funny-women, not-my-cup-of-tea

After 5 and half hours listening to this book i'm not even smiling ! i mean YES there was some funny scenes but mostly just some boring and long stories... Meh :3

i LOVE Tina fey, i loved her movies, she's talented woman i just couldn't enjoy her book as much as I hoped I would. it had some funny scenes, but nothing was "laugh out loud funny"

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Aug 03, 2016 Jennifer rated it it was amazing

Shelves: hungry-heart-inspiration

I know it's a total cliché to read a book and say you want to be friends with the author, but I want to be friends with Tina Fey (and I really think it could happen!) The tale of a suburban girl finding her voice and making her way in the still entirely too male world of comedy felt so specific and true...and her stories about her husband and her daughters are total #relationshipgoals.

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Mar 16, 2014 Raeleen Lemay rated it really liked it

Shelves: nonfiction

I listened to this on audiobook, and I'm so glad I did! I can't imagine how much less fun this would have been without Tina's actual voice. (I'm not saying the book was boring, Tina is just perfect and makes everything better always.)

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Oct 27, 2015 Ana O rated it it was amazing

Shelves: rock-stars-and-other-famous-people, bios

This book is perfection. Undoubtedly one of the best biographies I have ever read. Mrs Fey is an amazing comedian.

You still hear people say women aren't funny. Luckily we have kickass women like Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig and Melissa McCarthy to prove them wrong.

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Dec 23, 2016 Donna Ho Shing rated it it was ok

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Bryan Cranston and Shonda Rhimes have the best celebrity memoirs out there. They're the exception.
'Bossypants'- not my cup of tea. Oh, and parts of it were flat out racist.
I'm beginning to think two stars is a tad generous.
Maybe celebrity memoirs just aren't for me. I don't find them appealing, entertaining or really funny (as some claim to be).

Up next: Aziz Ansari's 'Modern Romance.'
(What?! I didn't say I was gonna stop reading celebrity books)

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Apr 07, 2011 Jason Koivu rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, humor

Hilarious autobio that touches upon the highs and lows of Tina Fey's life and career.

If you're a fan of her humor, as seen on 30 Rock and SNL, you'll be a fan of Bossypants. It's not an in depth, gut-wrenching tell-all memoir. For instance, she only glosses over the incident when she got the facial scar. But if you're familiar with Fey's brand of humor then the lightheartedness of it shouldn't surprise you. She's the sort of average, nice person that has her own strong opinions, but doesn't thi ...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Jeanette "Astute Crabbist" rated it liked it

Shelves: audio, biography-memoir, celebrities, giggles, nonfiction

So yeah, I was a Tina Fey virgin. Her name meant nothing to me until this book came out. [Insert gasp of incredulity.] People say, "You know, Saturday Night Live?" To which I say, "You know, no telly in my domicile?"
No, I don't really live under a rock. I just tune out nonessential information.
Anyway, I like Tina because she's funny in the way I would be funny if I were actually capable of being funny on a regular basis.

I listened to the audio book, which is really the only way to go with this ...more

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Oct 18, 2018 Holly rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audiobook, non-fiction, 2018-read

4.5 stars

I know I am seven years late to this party, but damn was this funny and on point. Ah the things Tina didn't know when she wrote this and yet she still brought up - the #MeToo movement that hadn't arrived yet, Hilary Clinton running for President again, hell there's even a Trump reference in this book! But ignoring all of those yet-to-happen things that she still somehow managed to allude to like some kind of weird comedic prophet, this book was downright funny and relatable. Well, as re ...more

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Feb 07, 2011 Nikki rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: true-story, bought, city-girls, nyc, wiseacres, xx, wry-me

I love Tina Fey. But I loved her more before I read this book. Now I know she's human and capable of disappointing me. This moment was inevitable. But still a little sad.

That said, there were portions of this book that killed me. Her "Origin Story" was hilarious, especially the talk about her scar and people’s reactions to it. Also, she is a genius when it comes to discussing everyday gender fuckery. I loved her whole take on menstruation and how she thought period blood would be blue because of ...more

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May 14, 2011 Antof9 rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011-read, americana, biographies-memoirs, bwa-ha-ha, fathers, liberry, mothers, women

I figured I would feel exactly about this book as I do about Tina Fey. 90% of the time, I think she's hilarious and smart and I want to be friends with her and I wish I'd thought to say what she said. The other 10% I'd like to tell her (because I'm friends with her) that something she just said was beneath her and I wish she hadn't said it. I was right - that's exactly how this book was. I loved it and I loved her, and I marked something about every other page that I wanted to quote or refer to. I figured I would feel exactly about this book as I do about Tina Fey. 90% of the time, I think she's hilarious and smart and I want to be friends with her and I wish I'd thought to say what she said. The other 10% I'd like to tell her (because I'm friends with her) that something she just said was beneath her and I wish she hadn't said it. I was right - that's exactly how this book was. I loved it and I loved her, and I marked something about every other page that I wanted to quote or refer to. Now I have to figure out which I'll use for my review :)

You know the expression "the most serious things are said in jest"? Well, even in her introduction I found what I believe to be a Truth. She's saying who the book is for and what the reader will find in it: "Perhaps you're a parent and you bought this book to learn how to raise an achievement-oriented, drug-free, adult virgin. You'll find that, too. The essential ingredients, I can tell you up front, are a strong father figure, bad skin, and a child-sized colonial-lady outfit."

She's not so far off. A strong father figure is a big deal.

There are several things in this book that make me think Tina and I are soul sisters. Or at least, that we think the exact same things. After describing how her mother handled talking to her about reproduction and menstruation (about the same way as my mom; she didn't), she says about a pamphlet, "The explanatory text was followed by a lot of drawings of the human reproductive system that my brain refused to memorize. (To this day, all I know is there are between two and four openings down there and that the setup inside looks vaguely like the Texas Longhorns logo.)"

Her descriptions of women -- blonde and otherwise -- are brilliant. After an updated list of How Women Should Be (based on Beyonce and JLo), she says, "The person closest to actually achieving this look is Kim Kardashian, who, as we know, was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes. Everyone else is struggling."

As someone who spends a lot of time with gay people (hello, she's in show business), her gay-related stories are sprinkled throughout the book, and ... I like them. One of her best though is close to the beginning of the book: "I guess I should also state that Karen and Sharon never hit on me in the slightest and it was never weird between any of us. Gay people don't actually try to convert people. That's Jehovah's Witnesses you're thinking of. ... If you could turn gay from being around gay people, wouldn't Kathy Griffin be Rosie O'Donnell by now?" Seriously, I wish some of my ultra-conservative friends could grasp that part. *sigh*

And in her description of her favorite "summer camp", she makes a (perhaps unintentionally) poignant statement: "With his dream of a theater program for young people, Larry Wentzler had inadvertently done an amazing thing for all these squirrels. They had a place where they belonged, and, even if it was because he didn't want to deal with their being different, he didn't treat them any differently. Which I think is a pretty successful implementation of Christianity." *another sigh*

And then I like the fact that her dad is very similar to my dad. I not only like some of her descriptions of "Don Fey", but the point she makes about him when others meet him:

My dad has visited me at work over the years, and I've noticed that powerful men react to him in a weird way. They "stand down." The first time Lorne Michaels met my dad, he said afterward, "Your father is ... impressive." They meet Don Fey and it rearranges something in their brain about me. Alec Baldwin took a long look at him and gave him a firm handshake. "This is your dad, huh?" What are they realizing? I wonder. That they'd better never mess with me, or Don Fey will yell at them? That I have high expectations for the men in my life because I have a strong father figure? [me: THAT!]

Only Colin Quinn was direct about it. "Your father doesn't fucking play games. You would never come home with a shamrock tattoo in that house."

That's Don Fey.

I have tons more things marked -- tons, including this: "You have to remember that actors are human beings. Which is hard sometimes because they look so much better than human beings."

... but I don't have time to quote anything else because this book is due at the library today and there are holds on it so I can't renew it. You'll just have to read it yourself. Really, you should. ...more

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May 16, 2012 Megan Baxter rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was expecting more funny.

Having read a small portion of this book online (A Mother's Prayer) and having found that very entertaining, I had high hopes for this book. And I should say, it's not a bad read. It's just not that funny. I laughed out loud maybe once, and smiled a few times more. Most of the jokes fell under the category of fairly amusing. Maybe as a script, it'd be great.

Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the recent changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. ...more

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Apr 25, 2011 Diane rated it really liked it

Shelves: humorous, memoirs, hollywood, audiobooks

Listening to Tina Fey perform this book was much more enjoyable than reading it in print. I first read this back in 2011, and I liked it OK, but after hearing a friend rave about how much fun the audio was, I decided to give the CD a chance.

It was hilarious! Some mornings I was laughing so hard while driving to work that other drivers would stare at me. Tina Fey performs different voices and really sells the stories. One of my favorite chapters was about her father, Don Fey: "He's just a badass. Listening to Tina Fey perform this book was much more enjoyable than reading it in print. I first read this back in 2011, and I liked it OK, but after hearing a friend rave about how much fun the audio was, I decided to give the CD a chance.

It was hilarious! Some mornings I was laughing so hard while driving to work that other drivers would stare at me. Tina Fey performs different voices and really sells the stories. One of my favorite chapters was about her father, Don Fey: "He's just a badass. He was a code breaker in Korea. He was a fireman in Philadelphia. He's a skilled watercolorist. He's written two mystery novels. He taught himself Greek so well that when he went to buy tickets to the Acropolis once, the docent told him, 'It's free for Greek citizens.'"

The story that had me guffawing to the point of being noticed by other motorists was about a weekend when Don Fey decided to rent a rug shampooer, but the machine seemed to be defective: "'Defective' was a big word in our house. Many things were labeled 'defective' only to miraculously turn functional once the directions had been read more thoroughly. If I had to name the two words I most associate with my dad between 1970 and 1990, they would be 'defective' and 'inexcusable.' Leaving your baseball glove in a neighbor's car? Inexcusable. Not knowing that 'a lot' was two words? Inexcusable. The seltzer machine that we were going to use to make homemade soda? Defective. The misspelled sign at the Beach Boys Fourth of July concert that read 'From Sea to Shinning Sea'? Inexcusable. Richie Ashburn not being in the baseball hall of fame yet? Bullshit. (Don Fey had a large rubber stamp that said 'bullshit,' which was and is awesome)."

The stories about her dad were part of Tina's larger narrative about how to raise an "achievement-oriented, obedient, drug-free, virgin adult." She lists Calamity, Praise, Local Theater, flat fleet, and Strong Father Figure/Fear Thereof. Tina also had great stories about her youthful adventures in a summer theater program, her experience with the Second City improv group in Chicago, and how she got her start on Saturday Night Live.

Tina is good at making fun of herself and her accidental celebrity status. There is an interesting chapter about the 2008 presidential election, when she famously portrayed Sarah Palin on several SNL sketches. Meanwhile, she was busy working on her show 30 Rock, and there was one particularly hectic week that Oprah Winfrey was going to appear on 30 Rock, which was the same day of Tina's first Palin skit.

"Saturday, September 13, I got up at 6 a.m. and filmed my scenes with Oprah at Silvercup Studios in Queens. She was great. She really does smell nice. And I got to hug her a lot in the scenes ... Between setups I sat with my daughter on my lap and watched Governor Palin on YouTube and tried to improve my accent. Oprah seemed genuinely concerned for me. 'How much rehearsal time are you going to get?' 'Do you have tapes of her to listen to?' 'You're going there right after this?!' (By the way, when Oprah Winfrey is suggesting you may have overextended yourself, you need to examine your fucking life.)"

Another favorite section of the book is when Tina shares her theory that the Rules of Improvisation can change your life. Put simply, the rules are that you should agree with your partner, and then build on it. This is known as YES, AND. "In real life you're not always going to agree with everything everyone says. But the Rule of Agreement reminds you to 'respect what your partner has created' and to at least start from an open-minded place. Start with a YES and see where that takes you... To me, YES, AND means don't be afraid to contribute. It's your responsibility to contribute. Always make sure you're adding something to the discussion."

Speaking of good discussions, I liked how Tina addressed the issue of women in comedy, and how she has dealt with various forms of sexism and ignorance in her career. She talked about how much things have changed since she first started at Second City and SNL, in that more women are getting roles on comedy shows.

One chapter that dragged was about her sitcom 30 Rock. Tina talks about her favorite jokes and episodes, and I think it would be boring for a reader who has never seen the show. The chapter was even boring for me, and I watched several seasons of 30 Rock.

But overall, this was a very enjoyable book to listen to. It is rare for me to recommend listening to a book rather than reading it, but in this case, I think the performance is better than the print.

First read April 2011
Second read May 2014 ...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Flannery rated it really liked it

Shelves: audiobooks, lolz, kcls, memoir, read-in-2012

I was hesitant to start listening to Bossypants because, like seemingly every other person on this planet, Liz Lemon is one of my favorite television characters of all time. My subconscious (and let's be honest here, also my conscious) mind just wanted to listen to a book about Liz Lemon being Liz Lemon. The audiobook would use C & C Music Factory's "Everybody Dance Now" as the intro and outro music (instead of original music by Fey's husband and 30 Rock composer Jeff Richmond, which was lov I was hesitant to start listening to Bossypants because, like seemingly every other person on this planet, Liz Lemon is one of my favorite television characters of all time. My subconscious (and let's be honest here, also my conscious) mind just wanted to listen to a book about Liz Lemon being Liz Lemon. The audiobook would use C & C Music Factory's "Everybody Dance Now" as the intro and outro music (instead of original music by Fey's husband and 30 Rock composer Jeff Richmond, which was lovely, but I digress...) and Hachette Audio could distribute a bag of Sabor de Soledad with each audiobook purchase. (I don't think Cheesy Blasters would hold up well en route to consumers) Seriously, I am practically lizzing about the hypothetical possibilities of a never-going-to-happen audio production here. I still loved the actual Bossypants audiobook, though. Tina Fey is one kickass and hilarious woman.

Fey narrates the book herself and her voice is easy to listen to in terms of pitch and pacing and she is entertaining as all get-out because I could actually envision the facial expressions she was making while telling stories about a girl in college who was too feminine to handle an entire piece of Trident gum, Sarah Palin offering her daughter as a babysitter to Fey's daughter at an SNL taping, and the faces she made while she was dictating fake responses to online trolls who wrote inane online comments about her talent, body, and sense of humor. I found the last section of the book to be particularly entertaining because I often write out responses to people on the internet and then just delete them without posting anything.

Dear Condescending Idiot,

Thanks for telling me I have no one to blame but myself for not seeing the clues. I definitely care about your opinion. I actually went to see the author speak last week and he said that he purposefully left out ALL clues so the reader would be surprised and specifically asked any person who thinks they saw it coming to email him about it. So I'm just answering your comment to tell you that you should probably email him and I truly hope this author you love tells you you're wrong and crushes your soul. I wish I could surgically remove you from Goodreads. But in the wild west of the internet (and according to the Terms of Service on Goodreads), you can post whatever you want. I can also delete it in this instance. So I will. Also, you suck.

F*ck off,
Flann

Backspace backspace backspace backspace. The comments Fey responds to are much more caustic than those directed at my intelligence and obviously Fey is approximately 7856.43% funnier than I am so you can only imagine how entertaining her responses are. I was/am insanely curious whether anyone will ever recognize one of the usernames mentioned and pass Fey's responses along to them. That would be seriously classic. Besides that chapter, Fey muses on smug mothers who tell other women how to raise their kids, people say "women aren't funny," what the ideal body is, and why "Bravo Bravo Bravo" is something you never, ever want to hear on a cruise ship. She never dwells too long on any one subject and the memoir proceeds in a generally linear fashion from her childhood years to the present day.

The sections I was most looking forward to did not let me down one bit: the Second City, SNL , and 30 Rock stories are filled with the details of how sketches/shows are developed and the writing process, background stories of how jokes and story arcs in 30 Rock came out of the life stories of the writers, and descriptions of how different personalities interact on SNL. (both the regulars and the guests) Throughout the entirety of the audiobook, it became clear to me that I enjoy Fey so much for a quality I always look for in people: their appreciation of the talents and work of others. While I have no doubt that she works hard, that is readily apparent, she is very quick to mention how many other people around her worked just as hard and brought so much to the table. And while there is a lot of feminist girl power-type stuff going on in Fey's book, it never felt totally obnoxious, but instead came off as more of an anecdotal, "It really bites to be a woman in this business at times but coincidentally (and luckily) I'm a flipping badass with mad writing and improv skillz so I killed it in almost everything I did and will continue to do so,and I don't care what you think." Her advice, inspired by her friend Amy Poehler and paraphrased by me in order to not have to type out the entire contextual story, is to just not give a crap what other people think is funny. Just do your thing.

There was really only one negative to the audio production--on disc four, several sentences were repeated twice, which led me to believe I was going insane for not noticing if they were chapter headings or something. (I don't think they were as they had the exact same intonation both times and there was no natural pause between header and body text) I mention this because I often do Google searches for things like, "Am I crazy or did everyone's copy of the Bossypants audiobook have double sentences?" and now this review will confirm to that one listener in 2036 that they aren't crazy. You're welcome, future person. The full-length audio of the Hillary Clinton/Sarah Palin sketch is embedded in the audiobook and it is almost as funny without the video aspect. PDF versions of all the photographs from the book are also included on the final audiobook disc. Definitely, DEFINITELY, check those out if you listen to Bossypants.

I recommend this audiobook to anyone who enjoys comedic memoirs, people who are curious what SNL and 30 Rock are like behind the scenes, and quite obviously anyone who enjoys Tina Fey's sense of humor. As usual, I find comedic memoirs to be best experienced in audio format with the reminiscing author as narrator. ...more

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Apr 08, 2011 Meghan McInerny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I almost gave this book 5 stars, and it is damn near perfect.

Let's start with the good stuff:
- It's extremely funny. And not just "laugh out loud" funny, but "laugh *so* out loud your spouse asks you to go read in another room because you're keeping him awake." If you enjoy Tina Fey's humor, you'll really appreciate this book. It's damn funny.

- It's (unexpectedly) full of really good advice about how to be a good boss. I mean, maybe I should have gleaned that from the title but I expected it to ...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Madeline rated it liked it

Shelves: memoir

"I experienced car creepery at thirteen. I was walking home from middle school past a place called the World's Largest Aquarium - which, legally, I don't know how they could call it that, because it was obviously an average-sized aquarium. Maybe I should start referring to myself as the World's Tallest Man and see how that goes? Anyway, I was walking home from school and I was wearing a dress. A dude drove by and yelled, "Nice tits." Embarrassed and enraged, I screamed after him, "Suck my dick." ...more

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Jan 13, 2019 Macy_Novels at Night rated it it was amazing

I wish that Tina Fey was my best friend. By the first paragraph I was laughing and in tears the next. She has her own way of bringing to light so many issues that women face daily, and her hard ass approach to deal with them was a breath of fresh air. As a career minded woman, I appreciated so much of what she had to say, and her comical writing made it even better. As a writer, I enjoyed her description and loved that she read her own audiobook. Thanks Tina for the advice and knowledge for all ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Victoria rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In my opinion, Tina Fey is a gifted comic and while I know I’m really late to the party on this memoir (actually I think every last piece of confetti has been picked up by now), I’m so glad I waited until I could listen to her narrate it. Her affable personality and razor-sharp wit shine through the telling while providing us a fun ride through her background, some interesting behind-the-scenes glimpses into her SNL experiences, the making of 30 Rock and the genesis of her spot-on portrayal of S ...more

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About Tina Fey

Tina Fey

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Elizabeth Stamatina "Tina" Fey is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer. She has received seven Emmy Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, four Screen Actors Guild Awards, and four Writers Guild of America Awards. She was singled out as the performer who had the greatest impact on culture and entertainment in 2008 by the Associated Press, who gave her their AP Entertainer of the Year awa ...more