My Thoughts

I have been a fan of Neil Patrick Harris for a while. I loved him as Barney Stinson in the sitcom How I Met Your Mother and as Dr. Horrible in Joss Whedon’s Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. And, I thought it woud be fun to read his memoir.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN AUTOBIOGRAPHY is written in the style of a choose-your-own-adventure novel. This style lends mostly to true stories about Harris with the occasional “if you want to listen to your own horrible death, keep listening” anecdotes. Like most celebrity memoirs, Harris narrates his own audiobook. I really enjoyed listening to him recount his own story. I also really loved when he broke out into song. I really loved a lot of the over-the-top parts. I especially loved listening to the sometimes true, sometimes comedic notes from his friends. However, my favorite parts were the stories of his life with his husband, David Burtka, and their twins, Gideon and Harper. When he talked about his family, I saw a regular person instead of a celebrity.

Harris’ memoir is the first one I’ve read that focuses on the author’s entire life instead of some challenge they had to deal with. His memoir is just about him as a whole. Because of this, I didn’t really feel inspired like I have with other memoirs so I was a little bit letdown by the end.