Book Review - Tina Fey’s Bossypants

(This review originally posted in April 2011 on Persephone Magazine. It’s been lightly edited and updated for republication here.)

Back in my reading funk, quick reads for me were few and far between. That being said, when a book pulls me in, I will forgo meal times and social activities to read it. My first read of Deathly Hallows took two days, read in backstage moments between scenes of a show I was in; Bill Bryson’s Shakespeare was finished in a few days on the couch during in-law holiday gatherings; Pamela Ribon’s Why Girls Are Weird had me searching out cozy nooks in a hotel in Myrtle Beach to read on vacation. Tina Fey’s Bossypants joins that club, finished in two days during late work shifts and finishing just one more chapter before bed.

Read as an autobiography or memoir, Bossypants probably isn’t very compelling. Tina Fey has been blessed with some pretty good luck, timing, opportunities, or whatever you’d like to call it. Jumping from childhood to camp to working her way up through Second City ranks to getting the gig at SNL on her first try and an NBC sitcom on her second, her story is definitely not one of overcoming adversity. If that’s what you’re looking for from her book, you’ll find yourself disappointed.

Read as a book of humorous essays, however, it becomes a book that you only put down so that you can go grab your husband or coworker from the other room and make them listen to you read entire pages aloud, knowing full well that you can never impart in your voice exactly why it’s so damn funny to you. Tina Fey’s brand of humor is a dry, but every so slightly exaggerated observation of the world. It’s why many women have latched onto her as a new kind of feminist role model, glad to have someone who points out the absurdity of the world in a much funnier way than we probably could. Where we might roll our eyes at the latest GOOP newsletter where Gwyneth outlines her day that she somehow thinks is just like ours, we can laugh along with the chapter in which Tina Fey describes what photo shoots are like because she seems to find it just as ridiculous as it should probably seem. The self-deprecation hits news heights in the iTunes Enhanced iBook edition (which is the one I read) where certain text will take you to bonus pictures, including one of her striking a hilariously fierce pose and pictures to illustrate pages titled “Remembrances of Being Very Very Skinny” and “Remembrances of Being a Little Bit Fat.”

Read as an advice book for feminists … well, first I’d ask you where you were a year ago when the “Tina Fey isn’t really the feminist idol we thought she was” backlash started happening. Then, after you’ve updated yourself and put that issue to bed like most of the rest of us, you do find some great, no-nonsense bits of admittedly unsolicited advice from Fey. My favorite of which being:

Should you read Bossypants if you’re looking for a deep, philosophical book that answers all your questions about what it means to be a feminist in 2011? Or if you’re looking for career advice from someone who struggled to break through that glass ceiling? Not really. Will you enjoy it if you don’t saddle it with those expectations and just enjoy it as a collection of humorous essays written by a person you enjoy? Definitely.