Others: Negative "Academy Award-winning actress, producer, and entrepreneur Reese Witherspoon invites you into her world, where she infuses the southern style, parties, and traditions she loves with contemporary flair and charm"-- Witherspoon's grandmother Dorothea always said that a combination of beauty and strength made southern women "whiskey in a teacup." Now Witherspoon invites you into her world, where she infuses the southern style, parties, and traditions she loves with contemporary flair and charm. She shares delicious recipes, favorite southern traditions, magical Christmas mornings, and more. She shows you that there can be a southern side to every place in the world. -- adapted from jacket and introduction.
Lists: …
Tiffany Haddish
2017 · 278 pages · 1 review
Others: Mixed"From stand-up comedian and actress Tiffany Haddish comes The Last Black Unicorn, a hilarious, edgy, and heart-wrenching collection of autobiographical essays that will leave you laughing through tears. Tiffany Haddish grew up in one of the poorest parts of South Central Los Angeles. Her mother wound up with a debilitating brain injury after surviving a car accident. Tiffany never fit in anywhere: not in the households she rotated through in the foster care system, and certainly not the nearly all white high school she had to ride the bus an hour to attend. As an illiterate ninth grader, Tiffany did everything she could to survive. After a multitude of jobs, she finally realized that she had talent in an area she never would have suspected: comedy. Tiffany faced the 'routine' hindrances of climbing the entertainment business ladder--but had the added obstacles of sex, race, and class in her way. But she got there. She's humble, grateful, down to earth, and funny as hell. She still cleans the toilet the way she was shown by a foster mom who worked as a maid, and she still rolls her joints the way one of her foster dads taught her. Tiffany can't avoid being funny: it's just who she is. But The Last Black Unicorn is so much more than a side-splittingly hilarious collection of essays--it's a memoir of the struggles of one woman who came from nothing and nowhere. A woman who was able to achieve her dreams by reveling in her pain and awkwardness, showing the world who she really is, and inspiring others through the power of laughter"--
What made the match, strongest first
Tina Fey
2011 · 277 pages · 4 reviews
Others: Mostly positiveTina Fey’s new book Bossypants is short, messy, and impossibly funny (an apt description of the comedian herself). From her humble roots growing up in Pennsylvania to her days doing amateur improv in Chicago to her early sketches on Saturday Night Live, Fey gives us a fascinating glimpse behind the curtain of modern comedy with equal doses of wit, candor, and self-deprecation. Some of the funniest chapters feature the differences between male and female comedy writers ("men urinate in cups"), her cruise ship honeymoon ("it’s very Poseidon Adventure"), and advice about breastfeeding ("I had an obligation to my child to pretend to try"). But the chaos of Fey’s life is best detailed when she’s dividing her efforts equally between rehearsing her Sarah Palin impression, trying to get Oprah to appear on 30 Rock, and planning her daughter’s Peter Pan-themed birthday. Bossypants gets to the heart of why Tina Fey remains universally adored: she embodies the hectic, too-many-things-to-juggle lifestyle we all have, but instead of complaining about it, she can just laugh it off. --Kevin Nguyen
What made the match, strongest first
Tressie McMillan Cottom
2019 · 248 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveThick: And Other Essays is a collection of essays by the American sociologist Tressie McMillan Cottom. The book explores a range of topics, including black womanhood, body image, and McMillan Cottom's experience as a Southern black woman academic. Published in 2019 by The New Press, Thick was a finalist for that year's National Book Award.
What made the match, strongest first
Brittney Cooper
2018 · 284 pages · 1 review
Others: Positive"So what if it's true that Black women are mad as hell? They have the right to be. In the Black feminist tradition of Audre Lorde, Brittney Cooper reminds us [in this memoir] that anger is a powerful source of energy that can give us the strength to keep on fighting"--Dust jacket flap.
What made the match, strongest first
Natasha Trethewey
2020 · 224 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveAt nineteen, the author's world turned upside down when her former stepfather shot and killed her mother. Grieving and still new to adulthood, she confronted the twin pulls of life and death in the aftermath of unimaginable trauma. Here she explores the way this experience lastingly shaped the artist she became. Moving through her mother's history in the deeply segregated South and through her own girlhood as a 'child of miscegenation' in Mississippi, she plumbs her sense of dislocation and displacement in the lead-up to the harrowing crime that took place on Memorial Drive in Atlanta in 1985. -- adapted from jacket.
What made the match, strongest first
Sutton Foster
2021 · 256 pages · 1 review
Others: PositiveIn these intimate stories and reflections about how crafting has kept her sane while navigating the highs and lows of family, love, and show business, Tony Award-winner and the star of TV's Younger Sutton Foster shares memorable moments - including her fraught relationship with her agoraphobic mother; a painful divorce splashed on the pages of the tabloids; her struggles with fertility; the thrills she found on the stage; her breakout TV role in Younger; and the joy of adopting her daughter, Emily. Accompanying the stories, Sutton has included crochet patterns, recipes, and so much more.
What made the match, strongest first
Not a fanFirst is whiskey and a tea cup by Reese Witherspoon then is the last black uniform by Tiffany Haddish and then a Bossypants by Tina Fey and you'll notice a trend there where it's all autobiographies of comedians. I think what I've learned this year is to stop reading comedians autobiographies because I really did not enjoy these.
