This is my first memory of Michael Ian Black.

You may be more familiar with his work as one of the funnier talking heads in the VH1 “I Love the” series of shows.

Based on my love of his work on The State and his aforementioned VH1 run, I thought I would check out the audio version of his book “You’re Not Doing It Right.” I was not aware he had written other books until referenced one, but based on this work I might check one out of the library to read.

This particular book did not hold my interest that much, although I don’t think that it’s because it wasn’t well-written. I think I would have enjoyed it more as a written book, where I read a full chapter at a time when I had the chance, instead of listening in chunks a few days apart. The book jumps around quite a bit, and while that worked for me in other similar books, for some reason I wasn’t feeling it in this one.

As I mentioned, Mr. Black has written other books, so I’m not sure what was included in those. This one focuses a lot on how he met his wife, what their courtship was like, their marriage, and their intense fights. It’d be really interested to get her perspective on some of his characterizations of their marriage. He is not necessarily kind to himself (he seems pretty aware of his shortcomings) but still – I wonder how she feels about this.

Some chapters were just sort of meh, but many did really touch me, either with a lot of laughter or some pretty serious shit. His take on his dad’s death when he was a young boy was really interesting, sad and sweet, while his frankness about dealing with a colicky infant was refreshing, funny, and a little heartbreaking.

So what is it that kept me from fully connecting? Perhaps I’m just distracted (I’m getting married in a few days). Perhaps the way I listened to it didn’t do it justice. I can’t give it the higher ratings but I definitely think it is worth a read. And even though his delivery is fantastic, unless you’re going to be strict about stopping after a chapter and not in the middle, I’d say read the book instead of listening to it.

I’ve had to stop running for awhile, so I finished up this audio book while cleaning my apartment last weekend (ah, the miracle of those noise-canceling ear buds).

I’m a fan of Kathy Griffin. I think she has a different way of making people laugh, is shameless in a way that doesn’t make me cringe as much as, say, your average episode of “The Office,” and (despite some of her jokes) seems like a genuinely nice and caring person. I picked this audio book because I figured hearing her tell these stories would probably be more entertaining than reading them.

I was right.

She is such a natural storyteller that I didn’t really ever feel like she was READING to me. I’m wondering how much was faithful to the written book and how much was changed for the audio version; she’d stutter, get lost mid-thought and switch gears (in a non-annoying way) and just generally sounded like someone I know sharing a story, not an author or comedian reading from their memoir. That was nice.

If you aren’t familiar with her work, Kathy Griffin started out as a comedian and actress, doing bit parts (including a memorable appearance on Seinfeld) until she was cast as the sidekick in ‘Suddenly Susan’, the Brooke Shield sitcom. Griffin is very up front about her understanding of her skills – she’s not a traditional comedian (she doesn’t excel at 10-minute stand-up spots relying on the set-up and punch line), and she was never going to be the ingénue in a blockbuster film. What she can do is be a funny sidekick, and tell some killer stories. If you’ve ever seen her live (I did, back in NYC), hopefully you know that she’s this high-energy person who can spend 20 minutes telling a story that is funny the whole way through but doesn’t rely necessarily on one big HA moment. I like that kind of comedy, but I realize it isn’t for everyone.

This memoir is really a memoir, not just a collection of some essays that tell her story. It really differs from other comedian memoirs (like “Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?”) in that it has some pretty dark moments. It’s a bit like “Bedwetter” in that aspect. For example, Griffin talks about one of her brothers, who she suspected of being a child molester.

You read that right. A child molester. And she deals with that in like the second chapter, so you know that this isn’t just going to be about some hard-scrabble times at The Comedy Store.

But there are those stories, too. Griffin’s exploration of how she found her place in the comedy world by setting up comedy nights with her friends that focused on storytelling and not repeating material is really interesting, as is her struggle with parlaying her success on “Suddenly Susan” into her own series (“My Life on the D List”). She talks about being repeatedly banned from talk shows, the Dakota Fanning awards show ‘incident’, and the suicide of a colleague. It’s not all laugh-out-loud funny but it’s all really interesting.

She also talks about her marriage, and what lead to it ending. It’s a fascinating section of the book that really had me riveted and annoyed when I had to turn it off because I’d gotten to work.

This is a good book. I probably won’t listen to it again, but if it’s possible to lend audio books then I’ll definitely be offering it up to friends.

I have to say I feel so weird reviewing such an honest and open book. I feel like if I criticize anything, or don’t have the reactions most people have, that I’m judging the author’s feelings instead of her writing or storytelling. But I’m just going to try to set that aside.

I can’t tell if I didn’t like this book because I listened to the audio version or because it just wasn’t a great book. Possibly it was a combination of both, but I’m feeling a little generous and so will blame most of it on the audio version.

As previously mentioned, I have a job some find odd. Because of that work I have spent some time trying to better understand grief. When I’m writing plans for how to best help people experience an unexpected loss, I want to know as much as I can to avoid increasing their pain. I’ve repeatedly heard and seen that there is no ‘right’ way to grieve, and that while nothing that is said is going to make the person feel as they did before their loss, there are certainly things people can say that actively do not help.  When I heard about this book, I thought it would be interesting to get an individual’s perspective on their own grief, especially an individual who is an eloquent writer.

O’Rourke’s mother died after a battle with cancer, and clearly it has affected the author greatly. None of my friends have lost a parent while I’ve known them (a few have lost parents prior to me meeting them), so I’ve not witnessed the grief of a loss of a parent at such a young age first hand (the author was younger than I am now when her mother died, and her mother was in her mid-50s when she died).

O’Rourke did a lot of interesting research to support the book. It is part personal memoir, and part exploration of other explorations of grief, if that makes sense.  She details her experience with her mother’s illness, the changes in her mother’s life, and in her own life, while dealing with the reality of a terminal illness. It was refreshing to hear a perspective that involved not just the direct experience with the dying by the attempts to manage one’s personal life. The author experiences different intimate relationships during her mother’s illness and immediately following it, and she describes them in a way that helps provide some insight into her daily life that isn’t just how she is relating to her father and siblings.

One part that I did really find to be well-done was her tackling of the ‘stages of grief’ idea that is so prevalent in our society. It seems most people don’t know (I only learned this last year) that the stages of grief are actually meant to address the stages people who are dying go through. Not those dealing with the loss of another person, but those dealing with their impending death.

I really do think that I would have found the book more moving and interesting if I had read it and not listened to it. While it was appropriate, the author’s complete monotone voice throughout six hours of reading made it hard to delineate between the happy, the sad, the informative and the funny. She sounded like a bored senior in high school reading a book report. If I had been reading I could have applied the same imagination I apply to other books when I read them, I and I think that would have been preferable.

Thus far I’ve listened to three other books, and all were (mostly) light, comedic books. This one required a bit more brain power and thoughtful processing of the words, and I wasn’t as able to do that when I was on a run or walking home from work. I’ve learned my lesson and will be sticking to the light stuff for my audio books.

This book is great, y’all.

Sorry. I’ve been known to say ‘y’all’ on occasion (who knows why – I grew up on the west coast), and after listening to Ms. Lawson read her hilarious, sweet and bizarre memoir, I’ve incorporated it into my vocabulary once again. I can’t help it.

You might be familiar with Jenny Lawson but not know it. She is better known as The Bloggess, and she is a brilliant writer. She’s open, a fantastic storyteller, and able to make me laugh out loud, tear up, cringe, and feel nostalgic for my own (pretty different from her) childhood. Often in the same chapter.

Lawson grew up poor in West Texas. Like, bread sack shoes poor. Her father was a taxidermist and would do things like stick his hand up a dead squirrel and treat it like a puppet, or bring baby bobcats into the home to hang out. While the subtitle of the book says the memoir is “mostly” true, the reality is that most any chapter struck me as both completely ridiculous and totally plausible. Do I believe that she once had her arm up a cow’s vagina during animal husbandry class? Yes. Do I believe that they had raccoons as pets for a while? Yes.

The stories follow Lawson from childhood through adulthood, into married life. She is a mother, although only a couple of her stories deal directly with her in that role, and one of them is a doozy. In that chapter she talks in great detail about her miscarriages and attempts at having a child. I cannot imagine how devastating that was, but Lawson has such a tremendous way with words that I felt like I was hearing a friend describe it. It had me tearing up and wanting to give her and her husband a big hug.

One thing I really appreciated about this book is that there is a sensitivity that runs throughout it. The stories are mostly hilarious and guffaw-inducing, but there’s a rawness and reality behind them. It is vulnerability and self-reflection and strength all wrapped up together.

A couple of things to keep in mind before you run out to buy the paperback version (on the NY Times bestseller list now! First: There is a ton of cursing in this book. I don’t subscribe to the idea that cursing is offensive or lazy writing. I think the concept of someone saying ‘heck’ when their personality and feelings want them to say ‘fuck’ is ridiculous, unless you’re in church or possibly at work. If the author is thinking ‘fuck’, she should write it down. Clearly, Lawson is often thinking ‘fuck.’ And it works. It makes sense, it isn’t shocking, and it’s a hell of a lot less jarring than someone reacting to something utterly absurd with ‘dagnabbit’ instead of ‘holy shit.’

Second: PLEASE buy the audio version of this book. Lawson has a fantastic voice and amazing comic timing. Her delivery of the stories makes them all the funnier. The audio book also has the bonus chapter that is found in the paperback version, plus a good 10 minutes at the very end which is just her in the sound booth, offering up some fantastic ideas. And saying ‘vagina’ a lot.

This book is staying on my phone for multiple re-listenings, and it is going to get five stars, because it is awesome.