by Tina Fey
Read by the author
ages: adult
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I really don’t know why Tina Fey felt that she needed to write a memoir. Perhaps it’s because this is the last season of 30 Rock (I hope; I really can’t imagine the show without Alec Baldwin), and she wanted to try her hand at writing… something not television/movie related. That said, it’s a good book. She goes pretty much chronologically through her life: from a childhood in West Philadelphia, to college at the University of Virginia, to her time in Chicago with Second City, to her years at Saturday Night Life, to 30 Rock. In there, she fits her marriage and birth of her first child as well.
Like most comedy, it’s uneven. Some parts are horribly hilarious (like her Doomed Honeymoon), some parts she just lectures (about sexism in politics, for example) and the jokes fall flat (but perhaps they were meant to). That said, it was entertaining enough — Fey’s self-deprecating style is really pretty funny — to keep me sitting in the car listening long after I had gotten to where I was going. My favorite sections were about the development and production of 30 Rock, perhaps because I’ve been a fan of the show since it started. But, I found that’s where the biggest laughs were for me.
A note on the audiobook: on the one hand, I really enjoyed hearing Fey read her book. She did voices (her Alec Baldwin is really quite good), and we got the audio clip of her first Sarah Palin Saturday Night Live. She did mumble on occasion which bugged me until I checked the print version and realized that she was mumbling the asides. But she kept saying “check the pdf for this picture. Really. You won’t regret it.” I never did. I listen to the books in the car, and I’m not going to take the CDs out just so I can look at a picture. I did, however, check them out in the print edition. And they were, as she promised, quite hilarious.
So would I recommend the audio book for this one? Well, yes… if you’re like me and willing to check out the print edition for the extra laughs.
The Book Nut 
I just read this one and I enjoyed it well enough. I think we are up to the 3rd season of 30 Rock. One day we really need to catch-up. That is too bad Alec Baldwin is leaving, though…
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You see, I read the book and now I'm wishing I had heard the audio version with her reading – so it would be hard to win either way.
I felt the same about the book – uneven in its comedy – but that was fine with me as I wanted a bit of Tina Fey in the memoir, and I know that's not all laughs.
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That's a good point, Pam. I would really — and I should have written this — recommend the audio over the print because they included the SNL clip from her first time as Sarah Palin. Which was hilarious. (Though, when I checked the print version, there were edits in the script. I sat and perused them for a while…) It really is hard to win either way.
Kelly: I love 30 Rock when it's good. It can be very, very funny. I just am not sure the last couple of seasons have lived up to its potential.
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