I Had a Conversation with Tina Fey

I am so excited to have chosen Tina Fey's Bossypants as my new independent reading memoir. After reading the first four chapters, all I have felt is as if I've held a conversation with her. To me, she's one of the funniest women ever, and it's with her memoir that I've been laughing out loud (literally). Feels very weird because I never really get physically influenced by anything I read. My facial expressions are almost never affected by books, however I frequently catch myself giggling or smiling whenever I read this one.

Why did I chose Bossypants? It basically was a moment of enlightenment. I am not, and never have been, a crazy Tina Fey fan. I knew who she was and seen her at times on TV. However, last week I was watching the Emmy's and saw her. Then almost instantly, I remembered that about two years ago one of my good friends told me she had read Bossypants and that she enjoyed it a lot. That's when I realized that it was the perfect memoir for me to read in AP Lang. Besides, I want to learn more about her life and also about how she can be humorous through writing (which is something I have always wanted to be successful at). 

So within the first two paragraph into the memoir, I'm already laughing. She starts by congratulating us (the audience) for reading her book and says there are many reasons to why we have it in our hands. She includes the following hypothetical situations to why we are reading Bossypants: 
1) We could be a woman searching for tips on how to succeed at a male-dominant workplace.
2) We might be a parent that wants to learn how to raise an "achievement-oriented, drug free, adult virgin" (Page 5).
3) Maybe we found her book seventy years into the future at an abandoned Starbucks.
4) Maybe we love Sarah Palin and we want to find more reasons to hate Tina Fey.
and finally 5) We just want to laugh and be entertained (which is exactly what applies for me). 

Baffled: (verb) To be completely
bewildered or perplexed. 

She has succeeded in making me laugh, especially when she begins to talk about how girls are expected to be perfect and work to achieve "hotness". She begins to criticize all of the requisites that would shape the perfect girl and how the only person who actually meets the criteria is Kim Kardashian, who according to Fey, "was made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes" (Page 20). It's not the only reference to celebrities that she makes, and that's something that also cracks me up. The way she criticizes shows and famous people is hilarious. For example, she asks the hypothetical reader that were to find her book at the abandoned Starbucks if "Glee is still a thing". Or when she starts to explain why she named her book "Bossypants", she said that one of the reasons was because the name "Two and a Half Men" already existed. 

But above all, what I'm loving about this memoir is how I can relate to Tina Fey. When she talks about insecurities, I identify. When she narrates parts of her adolescence, I understand her because I've lived similar experiences. Even her opinions about some celebrities matches what I think. Those are the things that make me want to keep reading and learning from her. WIth random and bizarre quotes, such as the following, she manages to create a burlesque and candid tone: "I wouldn't even trade the acne scar on my right cheek, because the recurring zit spent more time with me in college than any boy ever did" (Page 21). 

I just want to keep reading and maybe find out what was it that allowed her to become such a successful person in Hollywood, both in acting and screenwriting.