Book Review: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Title: Yes Please
Author: Amy Poehler
Social Media: Facebook, Goodreads and Twitter
Publisher: Dey Street Books, Imprint of HarperCollins
Format and Price: eBook at $11.99
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

About The Author:
Amy Meredith Poehler is an American actress, comedian, voice artist, producer and writer. Raised in Burlington, Massachusetts, she graduated from Boston College in 1993 and moved to Chicago, Illinois, to study improv at The Second City and ImprovOlympic. In 1996, she moved to New York City after becoming part of the improvisational comedy troupe Upright Citizens Brigade, which later developed into an eponymous television show that aired on Comedy Central for three seasons. Poehler was also one of the founding members of the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in 1999.

Poehler was a cast member on the NBC television show Saturday Night Live from 2001 to 2008. In 2004, she became the co-anchor of the Weekend Update sketch along with her friend and colleague Tina Fey. Poehler’s work on SNL earned her two Primetime Emmy Award nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series. She is known for voicing Bessie Higgenbottom in the 2008–2011 Nickelodeon series, The Mighty B! and Eleanor Miller in the Alvin and the Chipmunks CGI films. Since 2009, she has starred as Leslie Knope in the sitcom Parks and Recreation, and received the 2014 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Television Musical or Comedy Series. She is also an eight-time Emmy Award nominee. Poehler is currently starring in the new Swedish-American sitcom Welcome to Sweden along with her brother Greg Poehler.

About The Book:
In Amy Poehler’s highly anticipated first book, Yes Please, she offers up a big juicy stew of personal stories, funny bits on sex and love and friendship and parenthood and real life advice (some useful, some not so much), like when to be funny and when to be serious. Powered by Amy’s charming and hilarious, biting yet wise voice, Yes Please is a book full of words to live by.

General Observations:
~Artistic Advice: I loved how Amy Poehler was honest about how people get jobs in the Artistic Industry, no one wants to hear about how artists (regardless of whether they are actors or writers) worked a day job (or two), that it took years for them to establish themselves, even longer to set up connections. People want it the easy way and they want it now and I get that. I sometimes feel that way myself. I loved her chapter on “Treat your Career like a Bad Boyfriend”

~Good Ethos: One of the main themes in Yes Please was how Amy Poehler went to the extra effort to help bring women up (regardless of their various roles in her life), I especially loved her chapter dedicated to Tina Fey (it’s my favourite chapter).

~Contributions: I liked how different people contributed to the novel. I also like the photos of various people involved in Amy Poehler’s life such as the one that compares Amy Poehler’s mother holding a new-born Amy, side by side with a picture of Amy holding her new-born son Archer. The chapter about how Amy Poehler went to Haiti to aid with a charity group was heart-breaking sad and sweet at the same time.

Overall, a great read from an inspiring woman, who manages to make the ordinary hilarious and the painful moments bearable, all the while remembering it could be so much worse.