Bossypants

Bossypants 

by Tina Fey, April 2011, Hachette Audio 5hrs. 35 mins.

Fey is witty, intelligent, sarcastic, surprisingly serious, and self deprecating – her memoir is all of the above.

I will be participating in Audiobook week hosted Jen at Devourer of Books this week so I will post a couple of reviews of audio books I’ve listened to. I just started listening to audiobooks last year.  Here is a link to some of my favorites last year.  I'll post later this week on this years favorites.

Bossypants is far and away the funniest of the books I've listened to recently. Tina Fey reads her memoir herself and her comedic timing as always is excellent. The memoir is part comedy, part life advice and part assessment of social mores. On more than one occasion I found myself laughing out loud at the comedy. She relates stories, with great characters and descriptions from her experiences in the Summer Stage program at Upper Darby HS (full disclosure Fey grew up near me and went to high school near my parents’ home in Drexel Hill, PA). Her Greek parents, her time at Second City in Chicago, and her work at Saturday Night Live and 30 Rock all have segments in this story. Some of the funniest sections are the descriptions of how the Sarah Palin role came about.

Her life as a female comic in a male dominated world is fodder for much comedy but also many insightful suggestions for women facing gender discrimination. She draws some universal life lessons from what she learned in improve theater, also very funny. Soooo, in summary this audiobook is worth your time. Fey is witty, intelligent, sarcastic, surprisingly serious, and self deprecating – her memoir is all of the above.

I listened to a copy of this story that I downloaded from the Free Library of Philadelphia and there was an annoying problem with this production. At the end of Fey’s sentences the volume would become lower for the last two to three words. Not sure if it was a function of the download or the original production