Review: Yes Please by Amy Poehler

Yes Please by Amy Poehler
Publisher: Dey St.
Release Date: October 28th, 2014

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 is full of words to live by.

I must admit that I've never really watched Parks and Rec. I only recently began watching and have been told to just skip season one, so I'll probably do just that. But regardless, I've wanted to read Amy Poehler's book for a while now. She seems to be funny, with many stories to tell, and I had heard that it was a pretty feminist book as well. And in a way, it is.

 Amy isn't afraid to show and talk about the tough stuff--about the topics many others don't want to talk about. Part memoir, part essay collection, her book follows her musing on her journey through life thus far. She's able to talk about her experiences with an air of lightness through her use of humor while also balancing that with being grounded and very forward, open, and honest about everything she's done and everything she talks about.

It is so interesting to hear her life story and to hear about how she got to where she is today. It's amazing how she and many of her friends are now big names but how they started out in a similar place. She emphasizes how they struggled, what they sacrificed, and how they really worked hard to get where they are today.

I found her later essays to be much more intersting, with some of them really sticking out to me (I don't have the book on me because I borrowed it from the library, so I don't have the titles of the specific essays). They vary in topic and tone, but I appreciated the way she got her message--about feminism, about hard work, about whatever--across. It was very well done. She's and effective writer whose style will definitely draw in all different types of readers.

As I mentioned, I did find her book subtley feminist, and I loved that. She followed her own dreams, didn't let others get in her way, and owns/is proud of herself, her friends, her journey, her experiences, and all of her decisions and choices. Even if/when she regretted her choices, she was able to reflect on it and how it directly or indirectly helped lead her to where she is. I didn't agree with everything she said, and I don't necessarily agree with all of her choices, but the beautiful and wonderful thing is that that's okay. She accepts and allows for that within her writing, encouraging readers to be proud and open and honest about our own opinions, actions, and choices, regardless of what others might think/say about it, just as she does. She is so grounded and real, which is why so much of this might be relatable even if the circumstances are far from what most of us have experienced. And she does this while keeping her writing entertaining and easy to digest. I loved it!

Yes Please: Goodreads | Amazon | B&N | Book Depository