Book Review: Neil Patrick Harris, Choose your own Autobiography
My September genre for my 2020 Goodreads challenge was "true story/Autobiography and this has been the toughest genre to pick for. Should I go with a classic that I've ashamedly never read before like Anne Frank's Diary? Should I go for one of my favourite British actors, the great David Jason? Or should I find a true story on a topic I've not read about before? After putting the question out there on Twitter to no response, I asked my boyfriend who said "Ooh, you know whose autobiography is really cool? Neil Patrick Harris'. It's a "create your own Autobiography" where you as the reader choose what paths in life he takes." How NPH is that?!
At first, I was a little sceptical. I'm a huge NPH fan but I wanted to know the real story of his life, not make it up myself. Nevertheless, it did sound like a nice lighthearted change from the quite serious books I've read and reviewed lately so I thought, what the hell...challenge accepted!
When I got to the end of the first chapter, it gave me two choices: turn to page 8 for a continuation of the real version of events, or turn to page 6 for the made-up version. This is easy, I thought, I'll just choose to read all the real chapters first and then go back and do the book again, reading all the other chapters. Then I got to the end of page 8 to realise that both my next options were based on true events! Like in life, I was left at a crossroads. That's when I realised that this book wasn't going to be as straight forward as I first thought. Thus began the weirdest reading adventure I think I've ever been on! To be honest, what did I really expect from the great Neil Patrick Harris!?
With this book, not only do you get to dictate where in NPH's life you want to go, but you also get cocktail recipes, his husband's own Spaghetti Bolognese recipe, a crossword and even a few magic tricks (yes, I got the playing cards out and tried them out). But I'm pleased to say that you do actually get to find out about NPH's life from the moment he comes into the world as a "crying, covered in viscous afterbirth... one-year-old" to the point where he is settled down with an incredible husband and two beautiful children, two highly acclaimed hit TV shows, numerous movies, theatre and broadway performances and countless awards under his belt (oh, and Elton John as a close and personal friend.)
Unlike some of those celeb lives you read about where they've had a turbulent childhood, NPH's family are constantly supportive and his biggest inspiration. Hearing his childhood stories are charming and the opportunities that have come his way, sometimes (self admittedly) out of sheer luck are incredible. But that's not to say that he hasn't has his obstacles to overcome in life but it's his positive, determined attitude throughout everything that is so infectious.
I am a massive How I Met Your Mother fan too and so I was eager to read what he had to say about his experience on the show. I was hoping for him to reveal some fun behind the scenes stories or funny moments that I haven't already watched a million times over through bloopers on youtube. But instead, it was more of a tribute to the show, his castmates and his character which confirmed that the fun and laughs you see from the cast when you watched the show is all completely genuine which made this chapter even better for me.
The best thing about this book is that thanks to the way it is laid out, you'll need to read it at least three or four times just to make sure you've covered all of it and even then you'll keep going back to it to practice the card games to then try on your friends or make up some of those cocktails.
I had so much fun reading this book and with NPH's humour splashed across almost every page I can easily give this book a 5-star rating.
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