YES PLEASE (audiobook) by Amy Poehler





Published in 2014 by HarperAudio.
Read by the author, Amy Poehler.
Duration: 7 hours, 31 minutes.
Unabridged.

Amy Poehler tells about her life in this memoir. She is best known for her work on Saturday Night Live and her starring role in the NBC series Parks and Recreation. I love Parks and Rec so I decided to give her memoir a listen.

She starts with her early life, her first jobs, college and finally discusses her pre-SNL career. From time to time she has guest readers come along and contribute audiobook-only material. Seth Meyers was no surprise, but Kathleen Turner, Patrick Stewart and Carol Burnett were. Her parents each read their own short chapters. It gave the audiobook a bit of a podcast feel.

Most of the book was quite enjoyable, but there were too many instances of TMI (too much information.) For example, I now know Amy Poehler's feelings about men performing oral sex on her. I didn't need to know that. 

The section about SNL was fun. The chapter on Parks and Rec was even better.

The section on her divorce from Will Arnett is very depressing and surprisingly fact free. That was fine by me - I am not her friend and I don't need to know any details (I wish she'd have kept this in mind when discussing oral sex!) The next couple of chapters meander around with no energy until she moves on to other topics. I get that - divorce is a depressing topic. 

In the last third of the audiobook there is an extended rant inspired by a fan who drops off a script with her while she is riding on a train (or maybe a plane.) She indignantly goes on and on about how this man is discounting all of the work she did as she climbed the career ladder by simply dropping off a script and leapfrogging his way to the top. Who does this no-talent lazy bum think he think he is? 

It felt so different than the rest of the book - it was unpleasantly jarring. I felt like I had somehow stepped behind the scenes and witnessed Poehler having a bad moment after a very long, very hard day. Then, I remember that this was not a random "bad moment" - it was well considered and thought out since it was written, read by editors before it was printed and read by Poehler for the audiobook.

The book is 9 years old so there are lots of more recent things that a fan would like to hear about that just cannot be there. Also, all of her frequent positive comments about Louis C.K. did not age well based on subsequent revelations about the creepy sexual things he did in front of female comics. Every time Poehler mentioned him I wondered if she was also a victim.

I rate this audiobook 3 stars out of 5. It can be found on Amazon.com here: YES PLEASE (audiobook) by Amy Poehler.

This book was banned in a school district in Florida during the 2023-2024 school year. I assume it was because of the oral sex comments that I have previously mentioned. Here is the link to the article with a pdf of the very extensive list of banned books.

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