REVIEW: More Amy Poehler? “Yes Please”
[caption id=”attachment_4486" align=”aligncenter” width=”267"]
“Yes Please” by Amy Poehler, Dey Street Books (Courtesy: amysaysyesplease.com)[/caption]
Amy Poehler likes attention, and Amy Poehler likes control, but most of all Amy Poehler likes laughs. With her new book, Yes Please, she manages to get all of those, and more.
Yes Please isn’t the type of book you should read on a crowded subway train during the 9 a.m. rush. Yes Please is a laugh-out-loud, cry-real-tears, spray-a-little-on-the-person-next-to-you type of read.
From start to finish, Poehler never fails to captivate and entice her audience with anecdotes about her vanilla childhood in Massachusetts to her worldly adventures in Chicago with the Upright Citizens Brigade. She delves into her fast-paced time on Saturday Night Live, all the way to her Golden Globe-winning role as Leslie Knope on NBC’s Parks and Recreation.
Poehler is a wonderful comedian, actress, and advocate for young women everywhere. Her quirky touch is evident all throughout the book. Right bang in the preface, she opens the second page with a touch of brutal honesty. “It’s clear to me now that I had no business agreeing to write this book,” she admits. Poehler doesn’t give the reader any dreamy illusions about life in Hollywood, and she always gets straight to the point.
Departing from the funny for a few lines, Poehler incorporates some serious life lessons about self-confidence, relationships, and the importance of saying “no.” She writes about letting go of the demons in your life: “When the demon starts to slither my way and say bad shit about me, I turn around and say, ‘Hey. Cool it. Amy is my friend. Don’t talk about her like that.’ Sticking up for ourselves in the same way we would one of our friends is a hard but satisfying thing to do.”
Poehler’s writing style is very personal; she lets you tag along for the ride through her past. She describes time as “your bitch, if you just let go of the ‘next’ and the ‘before.’” According to Poehler, you can time-travel through people, places , and things. This sentiment gave me a deeper perception of change, and how it can influence your life positively or negatively, all depending on how you cope with it. Change is inevitable. It’s never going to stop.
While the book may not exactly be intellectual, Poehler keeps the reader laughing while doling out genuine, if not brutally honest, advice. We need more books like Yes Please — written by women who’re willing to address how crappy life can really be sometimes.
For that, I thank you, Amy Poehler.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_mdhkhlSzrl1qcm0m3o1_500.gif
By Lisa Cumming
