Laugh until you cry!


I picked this up because the cover was so interesting. When I realized it was a memoir of Tiffany Haddish I didn’t know much about her but I love celebrity memoirs so I had to give it a chance. I am like many reviewers have a girl crush on her. Tiffany Haddish is the first celebrity memoirs where I feel like the memoir came early in her career not after she has established herself fully. But she is READY and READY NOW. I think it made me want to watch her movies even more. As I read this memoir, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Tiffany is krazy with a "K." The way the book is written it's definitely ADHD status (no pun attended), but it jumps around a lot, but it's PERFECT! Why? Because it works! It fits Tiffany's personality! If it were written any other way it would not come across as authentic. I can tell Tiffany meant for it to be funny, but at other times, some things that occurred in her life was no laughing matter. For instance, having an absentee father and a mother with a mental illness is a lonely world for a girl to grow up in. In addition to the emotional and mental neglect was the repeated physical abuse she endured by her mother and husband, and even from the kids in foster homes.
Still, Tiffany is a survivor in every way, with a determination not to ever give up! She fights her way through ridicule, abuse, and a male-dominating industry, in order to make her way to the top. She's a raw talent whose honesty is identifiable by the average person. In life, we can be a "Betty Downer" or a "Winnie Woe is Me" or we can learn from our experiences and use them as a way to learn and heal as Tiffany did. Some of us learn by vicariously living through others and some of us learn from hands-on experience, Tiffany is the latter. She's learning and she is growing from her experiences.

I enjoyed the book for the laughter and fun, but most of all for its honesty and the way it was written like a conversation between two girlfriends. I have suggested it to at least 10 people and it is now officially my favorite book of 2019 so far. I think Kevin Hart’s memoir will be on my list for at some point in 2019.

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Woof. With the title like that you think it would be some kind of unicorn joke as in the LGBT type, or just a part of her skit. It really doesn't do that.

So my main issue with this book... it relies on ableism a lot. I don't find ableism humor very funny, especially not from somebody who's not disabled. It's one thing for a guy who's missing his leg to make a leg joke and get away with it, I wouldn't compare it to a culture, but I would say that it's definitely one thing for a deaf person to make a deaf joke.

When Toph from Avatar can make a joke that's funnier than this book I'm always a little bit scared. Don't get me wrong Avatar is an absolutely wonderful TV series, but it is not the best comedy in the world it is just good comedy occasionally sprinkled in.

So. The book.

There are a few moments that are funny but then it slips into this terrible plotline.

She meets a guy with basically "a stumpy little nub arm" that she fixates on his arm and his disability and the fact that he's obviously a little bit slow. So she starts making jokes using how he speaks and slurs his speech, as part of her comedy. Like basically imitating an autistic person's way of speak for humor, only he speaks very jumbled and it's supposed to be funny because he speaks weird. Guy likely has a mental condition on top of his physical deformity. And then she decides to go on a date with him but the whole time she's talking about how disgusting he is. On top of that she then decides to have sexual relationships? Apparently the sex is awful, and she goes on to describe how he's a disgusting abomination just because he's physically disfigured and also speaks a little badly. Like I don't know how to tell you this but that's ableism if you don't want to date somebody like that then don't date them but when you date them don't make them something to exploit. Chances are down the road if that guy ever saw you on a book and read it he might know that you're talking about him, likewise people that you wrote about might know you're talking about them.

Whatever it wasn't fixated on disabled people and how "gross" they are it was actually kind of funny, but it went back to fixating on disabled people too much for my taste.

That's a disabled person I was trying to overlook this, I've overlooked a lot of disability jokes and disability humor, but it was just so there that I couldn't.

I'm mad that five years ago in 2018 so many people read this book and didn't see any of the disability ableism going on in it and nominated it. That really does disabled people dirty.

2 stars. ( )

Went back and forth between 2 and 3 stars because it was mostly just okay. There were some important and touching things and lots of laughs. I didn't gain anything from listening and it didn't make me want to follow her career or seek anything out that she's in. Meh. ( )

This book heals. An easy read and raw in all its glory. Amazing i love everything in it. ( )

I went back and forth on how I felt about this. On one hand, she can really spin a yarn, and at the beginning, listening to the author read her book, I was imagining sitting down with a friend and listening, spellbound, to story after story of her life. I was really interested in the stories from her childhood and so wowed by what she’s had to overcome.
I appreciated the level of honesty in the book too. Haddish shares extremely personal stories, and they don’t always show her in the best light. She doesn’t sugarcoat anything. She’s made some truly bad choices with relationships and has been stuck in some scary, frustrating cycles. Those sections were hard to listen to. But I think the hardest part to listen to, and the reason I don’t recommend this on audio, was the chapter about Roscoe. I think it was called “Roscoe the handicapped angel,” and she made the ill-advised decision to imitate his voice during this section. Since he had a disability that included a speech impediment, it was very uncomfortable to listen to and offensive, I’m sure, to people with similar problems.
There’s a lot of swearing throughout, like a lot a lot. She’s got a great voice, and there’s a certain rhythm to the profanity, but it’s definitely not for folks who dislike strong language.
There were times I wasn’t sure I wanted to finish, but I’m glad I did. She has a compelling story, and I’m happy for her that she’s overcome so much. ( )