“You are with yourself every day, all day, all night—might as well like yourself.”
Leslie Jones is a comedian who is best known for her role on SNL for a couple of years. This memoir describes her life – from her childhood growing up in the South with a military father, her early high school and college days playing basketball, her early stand-up days driving from gig to gig and living from paycheck to paycheck to being cast on SNL which came because of a Chris Rock recommendation. I did this book on audio and I’m going to be reviewing this book on audio because I’m pretty sure this book on audio is very different from the printed book. For context, the printed book is 288 pages, the audio is 17 hours of Leslie just telling you, her story. It’s a long podcast filled with streams of consciousness and sometimes she even says – “I don’t think this was in the book but let me tell you about that time when…”.
“My talent can take me anywhere I want to go. I’m not conceited or cocky. I’m just convinced.”
I knew nothing about Leslie before I picked up this book. I’ve never heard any of her comedy and I don’t even watch SNL. I just know her as a public figure who was on SNL. So, I definitely went into this one completely blind about her story. Leslie grew up in the South with very young parents. Her parents got married when they were 18 and tried to do the best they could with what they had. Leslie’s ability to keep moving forward no matter what happened to her is very inspiring to listen to. She talks about her coming to the realization that she was black and a dark-skinned black girl at that and always asking her father if she was beautiful. She talks about hoping that her success will convince people who look like her to just keep going and that it gets better on the other side of being a grown up.
“I remember hearing Diana Ross once say, “Know who you are because if you don’t, they will make you what they want.”
Leslie is a very complicated person. There are a lot of things that I didn’t agree with, but I respect the fact that Leslie was always herself. Win or lose, she was always going to do it her own way and that takes a lot of courage to decide that who you are is enough. Did I listen to some of the stories and think she overreacted? Yes. Do I also think that it’s problematic that I think a dark-skinned black woman needs to tone it down? Absolutely. There is a lot of things living in America makes you internalize, and Leslie has internalized none of that. She tells you story after story of her trying to navigate her career – the things she did wrong and the things she got right. Consistently calling people out who she felt disrespected her because she’s a woman or because she’s black.
“I knew I wasn’t going to have children as far back as when as I was twelve. I am not a pain person. You’re telling me you’re going to pull a whole human out of my pussy? (For a start, I’m going to need more than six weeks off.) We saw a film in health class called something like The Beauty of Childbirth—but all I saw was hideous shit. What’s beautiful about snatching a baby out of a woman’s ass? The fuck? My cousin Rhonda even delivered a baby in our house, and I remember that there was so much blood…
None of this was going to happen to me.”
Leslie talks about her decision to not have kids. The abortions she had before going into planned parenthood for some much-needed sex education so that she could prevent getting pregnant. She was with one of her partners for a very long time and he wanted kids, but she was sure that if she stayed with him, she would be stuck and not achieve her dreams. Also, his mother hated her, and she got tired of the disrespect and left him. But as soon as she got pregnant the first time, she knew she was never going to be a mother. She knows that her mother would be disappointed about her decision to never have kids especially now that she has the resources to actually afford them but it’s a decision she made with clear eyes and has never regretted.
“He’s a grown-ass man. If you don’t watch out, you’re both gonna die—you’re both gonna sink in that same boat.”
Leslie talks about the complicated relationship she had with her father who wanted so bad for them to make something of themselves. She talks about her now deceased brother who was deep into selling crack during the crack epidemic in California. One of her regrets is that none of her family is here to reap the benefits of her success. As she describes her father, you get the feeling that she is hoping that her audience doesn’t judge him too harshly. She talks about how great he was when she was young and how he always told her she was gorgeous but also told her that she is a woman and black and she would have to fight hard to get anything in this world. You can tell that Leslie feels guilty that she chose herself unlike her brother who was stuck trying to take care of an alcoholic father. She was single minded in the pursuit of her career.
“The world’s not going to stop for that shit. This doesn’t define who you are. Don’t make this the focus of your life. There’s always going to be hurt before you get to the right place.”
All in all, I loved listening to this book, and it made me actually laugh out loud. So many times, I would stop and send Tayne a voicemail of something that I found incredibly funny. Like Leslie asking her therapist if she’s promiscuous because she was sexually abused when she was young and her therapist asking her if she’s considered that maybe she’s just a slut. It made me laugh so much because Leslie was like – you know what? you’re right. Anyway, I recommend this book and wish Leslie Jones continued success in all her endeavors. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.
Leggy
TwoNightStands 