Bossypants
By Tina Fey (Reagan Arthur Books, 2011)

I’m not the biggest Tina Fey fan. I feel respect, admiration, but also the frustration that, as SNL newsreader, Mean Girls screenplaywright and 30 Rock creator, she’s settled for too many easy laughs and obvious set-ups. I guess you could say that about this book too, since it’s in the conventional memoir format, without any of the envelope-pushing provocations of, say, Sarah Silverman or Dave Eggers.
Yet despite its shortcomings, I had to stop reading this book in bed because I was giggling and chortling so frequently that my wife couldn’t get to sleep. The wisecracks disarm you here in a way they don’t in Fey’s other comedy media. She’s also much more endearing here than I’ve found her to be in her movie or TV projects. The chapter in which she exalts her father while attempting to analyze and justify some of his conservative and un-PC impulses, is not just well-crafted but crafty. The book could easily have been a knock-off, the obligatory literary stage in a mutli-pronged celebrity career. Instead, it’s so moving and mirthful it knocks you for a loop.