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I listened to Yes Please in my car over the course of about a week during my evening commute home. I wrote a fan letter after the first two hour ride home. I almost never write fan letters. I have written all of three in my life. Yes Please is a hilarious read (which I was expecting). It is also genuine, heartfelt, inspiring, generous, kind, and thoughtful. I was expecting some of that, but maybe not all of it. I cried as much as I laughed. Poehler shares stories and anecdotes about her life, ruminating on the existential. It can be considered a light read, but there are parts that are very deeply moving and that touch on things beyond the privilege and champagne problems of a Hollywood celebrity, things that Poehler herself is only too ready to admit are not truly problems at all.
The book is non-traditional in it's non-linearity. It skips around a little between timelines and periods of her life, but seem more grouped by certain kinds of experiences or certain kinds of realizations that have happened. She is encouraging and mindful and the stories and insights helped me to get through a dark patch during which all I wanted was an extinction level event to wipe out humanity and re-set the playing field for the rest of the planet (even the few thousand of us who would probably survive). Admittedly, I was being melodramatic, but I was in my feels and I couldn't see a way out of it until I listened to Amy Poehler's infectious laugh, her amazing stories about working on SNL, and realized that I needed to take a chill pill and that everything was going to be alright in the end.
Poehler reminds us to be kind to ourselves and to each other. She gives excellent advice and offers sage words on negotiating life in the world. Memoirs and biographies can get boring sometimes, but this stayed as fresh and as interesting in the end as it was in the beginning. Perhaps, it was because she didn't spend too much time dissecting the meaning of her life, rather she ties her experiences and self-realizations to a contemplation of the people and the world. There is value for everyone. It's a love fest in this book, as well, and if nothing else, I learned that Amy Poehler seems like a cool friend to have. She doesn't pull her punches, she's enthusiastic and supportive and game for almost anything. She would make an excellent partner in crime.
So, if you're in a rough place and the walls are closing in on you, this is a good book to read (or do yourself the real favor of having Amy Poehler read it to you). I also recommend the original cast recording of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
If you can't tell, I loved Yes Please. I don't like gossip rags and I'm not a fan of "tell-alls", soap operas only hold my attention for a tiny sliver of time. Yes Please was a perfect mash-up and, I felt, very well balanced. I didn't need the minutiae, in the end it didn't matter. What I wanted was how it shaped her and what she learned about the things that have happened in her life. She did that, I got it and I couldn't have been more pleased.
I hope that somewhere down the line, Amy Poehler writes another memoir. Hell, she should write another book, period. This one was awesome!
The book is non-traditional in it's non-linearity. It skips around a little between timelines and periods of her life, but seem more grouped by certain kinds of experiences or certain kinds of realizations that have happened. She is encouraging and mindful and the stories and insights helped me to get through a dark patch during which all I wanted was an extinction level event to wipe out humanity and re-set the playing field for the rest of the planet (even the few thousand of us who would probably survive). Admittedly, I was being melodramatic, but I was in my feels and I couldn't see a way out of it until I listened to Amy Poehler's infectious laugh, her amazing stories about working on SNL, and realized that I needed to take a chill pill and that everything was going to be alright in the end.
Poehler reminds us to be kind to ourselves and to each other. She gives excellent advice and offers sage words on negotiating life in the world. Memoirs and biographies can get boring sometimes, but this stayed as fresh and as interesting in the end as it was in the beginning. Perhaps, it was because she didn't spend too much time dissecting the meaning of her life, rather she ties her experiences and self-realizations to a contemplation of the people and the world. There is value for everyone. It's a love fest in this book, as well, and if nothing else, I learned that Amy Poehler seems like a cool friend to have. She doesn't pull her punches, she's enthusiastic and supportive and game for almost anything. She would make an excellent partner in crime.
So, if you're in a rough place and the walls are closing in on you, this is a good book to read (or do yourself the real favor of having Amy Poehler read it to you). I also recommend the original cast recording of Rocky Horror Picture Show.
If you can't tell, I loved Yes Please. I don't like gossip rags and I'm not a fan of "tell-alls", soap operas only hold my attention for a tiny sliver of time. Yes Please was a perfect mash-up and, I felt, very well balanced. I didn't need the minutiae, in the end it didn't matter. What I wanted was how it shaped her and what she learned about the things that have happened in her life. She did that, I got it and I couldn't have been more pleased.
I hope that somewhere down the line, Amy Poehler writes another memoir. Hell, she should write another book, period. This one was awesome!
