Grade: B

Comedian memoirs are a tricky thing. Often times, the writer will want to broach serious issues and ruin our good time because we just want them to make us laugh, damn it. To be fair, a good amount of the time this is due to poor or manipulative writing and the rejection is well deserved. Very few of these books transcend the genre and become something else, Steve Martin’s Born Standing Up being, arguably, the best example of this. In Bossypants, Tina Fey does occasionally, but not always, achieve this. She has an agenda (Note to my conservative readers: Please don’t read that as “Liberal Agenda” because that’s not what I mean and that word doesn’t always have to have negative connotations), being the general view of female comics and the unreasonable backlash one gets from simply being female in the comedy world, and sticks with it pretty much throughout the book. Fey, being a champion of women in comedy, almost has a responsibility to visit that theme again and again. She does this through the insight of her own experiences, which are obviously extensive and relevant, and light-hearted, self-deprecating humor running throughout.

This is not a straight forward memoir in the sense that there is no obvious through line. She jumps around in time to periods she feels are most relevant to the themes of the book, and there are frequent asides, such as her tribute to the greatness of Amy Poehler, which will be frustrating to readers who would prefer a more traditional biography, but is refreshing to those of us who are tired of traditional biographies. There are topics she avoids, mostly things that would infringe on the privacy of those she cares about. One particular, though, is that she very much does not want to talk about her scar. It’s perfectly understandable that she wouldn’t, and it’s also perfectly understandable that people are curious about it. She gets around this by addressing it almost immediately, giving an absolute barebones detail of the event and giving nothing more. She doesn’t necessarily avoid it as its referenced a few times throughout the book, but by not harping on it or giving it too much weight, she prevents making Bossypants a somber account of her life. This is very much a comedic book with serious elements to it, and by dealing with the elephant in the room immediately and briefly, we’re free to move on to the good stuff.

The best parts of this book, for me, are the behind the scenes of Saturday Night Live. I’m a sucker for these stories since I’ve been watching that show every week since I learned how to wake up in the middle of the night while my parents were sleeping and turn the TV on very quietly. The show has always famously had a reputation as a boy’s club, and there are some great stories in this book concerning that, and offering a different, less jaded, perspective. Since she is possibly the most successful woman to come out of SNL, Fey has a unique opportunity to tackle this issue and show how it’s not something that is set in stone. It’s not all about this issue though, there is plenty of fun to be had as well. She describes her audition process, table reads, and, of course, her run as Sarah Palin. Through her, we get to know Lorne Michaels and Amy Poehler to some degree, but in her effort to not have this book be seen as a tell-all, she keeps everyone else at arm’s length. Instead Fey keeps the focus perpetually on herself, this being her book and all that is understandable. This doesn’t come off as narcissistic, I don’t want to suggest that, but it does come off as a bit overly cautious at times.

I don’t think Fey is comfortable going very long without a laugh. As a comedy writer this makes a ton of sense, but it can also cheapen this book at times. Occasionally it gets a little too jokey when it’s not really called for. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying this book isn’t funny, because it is, but there are moments when it doesn’t feel that the material is being fully trusted, so a self-deprecating anecdote or observation is thrown in at the tail end of a rant, lest we think she’s one of those feminist types. Tina Fey is an extremely funny person, but also a good enough writer to not always have to fall back on humor. All I’m saying is, we already like you, Tina, don’t always try so hard to impress us.

Buy this book!