2.5/5

Aside from watching her on The Office and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, I knew nothing about Ellie Kemper before reading this collection os essays. Now I would say I know the highlights, but this is a very curated collection of stories from her past. We don't see her struggling and she has a privileged upbringing (she went to Princeton and was supported financially in her young twenties).

I enjoyed some of them, but most of them fell flat. She would relate two parts of her life into a single essay, which did not always work. My favorite of her essays were, Daughter, Hysteric, Bridesmaid, and Kimmy. I wish she would have talked about The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt more because one essay was not enough. Although, maybe she is saving it for another book. I do think this memoir needed more pictures, but I did enjoy learning about her.

This isn't a collection on "how I became famous" or "how to succeed despite everything life has handed me". Her collection is her being humorous on various (occasionally boring) parts of her life.

This book is a bit like what I experience Ellie's interviews to be like, one story leads to another and another until it's several layers deep of a story within a story. Sometimes it's hard to see a connection between them. My Squirrel Days is not difficult to read, the style is laid back and it's easy to breeze through.

I didn't really go into this expecting anything in particular. I love Ellie Kemper, specifically for her role as Kimmy Schmidt. This book is everything you could hope it would be and more, told from Ellie herself. This is great for fans of her work on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Office, and she does have a way with words, in which every bit of this is read with her voice inside your head.

I expected to love this book and I did! Not only did I get to learn more about how Ellie grew into a great comedian and actress, I learned how her brain works. Super quirky! My favorite chapter was Slob. This could be a scene for SNL but it is her life. I cannot wait to see what happens in the next chapters of her life

Ellie Kemper writes about her life and acting/comedy career. The parts I enjoyed the most were the ones about her awkward encounters with other people. These felt the most relatable and a few of them made me laugh aloud.

While there were plenty of jokes, there were times I wished Ellie had used her platform to dig deeper into emotional content. The stories from her life that she recounted seemed a little shallow at times, and very safe.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a free copy of this ebook in exchange for an unbiased review.

I like Ellie Kemper as an actress/ comedian. Her parts, so far, have not shown tremendous range, but the slightly ditzy, sweetly optimistic, tenderly injured character that she played in The Office and, then again, in Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, are winning. She seems likable.

However, and this may be a problem I have with a group of books on a whole, young actresses who take on the task of writing a memoir are sort of asking for criticism. If you offer me an autobiography and you really haven't yet experienced a whole life, I immediately have a problem. Of course, picking up this book. I knew that it there would be slim memories. However, I've seen Kemper talk about her Missouri childhood, before. While not deep, she seems to have been the type of quirky kid who would have been delightful for an adult to know. The problem is, she's already shared these stories on talk shows and shorter form interviews and, well, putting the same stories between the hard covers of books doesn't change the material.

Generally speaking, her career has had a predictable arc. Kemper started out in improv comedy in college (the general jumping off point for most comics these days), then did a few day jobs while she booked an impressive array of national commercials. Finally, she was hired by The Office as a replacement receptionist when Pam's career advanced, and her character (and career) settled into place.

She does reveal very human foibles of screwing up talk show interviewed, being overwhelmed at meeting Carol Burnett (who wouldn't?), ingratiating herself to casts and crews, and getting angry when her cycling teacher asks her to move her spot so that a married couple can exercise together. Her marriage and her early years of motherhood are sort of cute but honestly not different than everyone's experiences. She just has a name and a contract to write it down in a book.


I'm sure she would admit that she is not Tina Fey and this is not "Bossy Hands." If you are a Kemper fan, you will certainly find kernels of information that will amuse you, but seeking out this book (I was fortunate to get an ARC) is probably not something I would recommend. If there is a audio version with her own narration, that might be more worth the price of the book.

Kemper's whit and good-girl attitude make this collection of essays in her first memoir an exciting, fast read.
Her humor and description often make it unclear if she is a reliable storyteller, and that makes the work all the more exciting to read. Her genuine, clearly flawed, and expressly human actions are brought to life throughout each essay. I have already started recommending this to everyone I know.
Thank you, NetGalley and the publisher for an electronic ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Look, I really, really like Ellie Kemper as an actress and a person. I relate to her a lot as I have a similar upbeat, somewhat spastic personality and a tendency to pee when I laugh too much (TMI??). However, and there is no nice way to say this, sometimes you can be a funny, interesting person but not in a fill a book kind of way.

My husband asked me why I wasn't in love with this book and I asked him, Would you want to read a book based on my life? He said no. Super quickly, I might add.

Ellie Kemper is very talented, but she had a lucky, bump-free rise to fame. She is from a very wealthy, cohesive family who supported her financially and emotionally; she went to Princeton where she was free to explore comedy; she got recognized for her talent early on and was cast quickly as an actress and model; and she met and married a great guy and remains happily married. As one white girl from a happy, moderately wealthy family who played mediocre field hockey to another, I say good for you! - but that journey isn't compelling to read about.

Some parts of the book were really, really funny. Ellie Kemper is witty and smart, both things I adore, and some of her dialogue cracked me up. I liked the insights into The Office and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, and I related to her parenting sections, but I couldn't stop thinking that this book should have been written maybe 10 years from now when Ellie Kemper has more to say.

I hate to say this, but the story wasn't funny enough to just be a funny memoir without a really interesting backstory about Ellie Kemper's rise to fame. I found her to be charming, but the book never rose above just okay for me.

*Copy provided in exchange for an honest review*

Was completely charmed by this book - loved her fresh voice and how she transformed mundane childhood anectdotes into MAJOR events, which is absolutely how it feels at the time! It was impressive to read a debut book by a comedy figure that was 99% clean - a rare talent to effectively use language & substance vs. shock/gross-out value and still be funny. It read as a toned-down version of Kimmy Schmidt, so easy to see how it's been such a successful role for her. I loved her earnestness/genuineness and look forward to where her future work takes her - and her audience!

I love Ellie Kemper! She is so relatable and down to earth and I love her humor! I have a funny sense of humor and don’t always find all comedians funny but I absolutely love her witty sense of humor. She is a strong inspiring woman and reading her book felt like sitting down for a chat with her! I loved every second!

Ellie Kemper has written a quirky, witty and sometimes sarcastic series of moments from her young life. There are several scenarios where you will hahhahhahaaaahhhaa out loud.

I think that Ellie and I could have been friends in elementary school. I would have shared my hamburgers with her and showed Ms. Romanoff that we were quite a team. But later in life I know that we would have drifted apart....SoulCycle just isn't my thing.

Pick this up to read it on a flight and have others look at you when you snort out loud. It isn't The Odyssey but I definitely recommend it.

I just reviewed My Squirrel Days by Ellie Kemper. #NetGalley
[NetGalley URL]

I have always liked Ellie Kemper since I first saw her on the office years ago. Her character was just so refreshing to see. I was hoping that she was like her character on the show, and I am happy to say that after reading this book, that she is.

I enjoy her in her show kimmy schmitt as well. This book while it being hard on my OCD brain, is a good quick read. It's a simple read about her life. I do feel like some parts were a bit boring and drawn out far longer then they should have been (hence the 3 stars) but if you ignore those aspects and just skip over things that get a bit too much, the book is actually a good read.

I don't think Ellie Kemper has had an interesting or long enough life to write a memoir. I understand wanting to capitalize off the success of her oddly racist and anti-Semitic show Kimmy Schmidt but there isn't a lot here. I also wish she had addressed some of the criticisms of the shows she's been on and the people she's worked with but she didn't. I guess she is funny enough but she (or her ghostwriter) isn't very good at conveying this in a book format.

I went back and forth with this book. I went from feeling that this memoir contains content that doesn't contribute to this world to relating closely with Ellie's hangry tendencies to feeling like her thoughts were scattered and random. Overall, this book did not make me laugh out loud but it was a fast-paced and interesting read. I enjoyed hearing her stories from her perspective, but I feel like she might have been able to say more if she waited a few more years to write a book.

I like Ellie Kemper well enough and enjoy her work on The Office and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt.

I felt like this book was more about her personal journey to working on those shows and not enough about actually being on them.

I've read Amy Poehler's book and Tina Fey's Bossypants and My Squirrel Days can't hold a candle to them.

Many thanks to NetGalley, the author, and publisher for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

First I want to say that I love Ellie Kempers acting skills. Erin was one of my favorite characters on The Office and watching an Ellie interview is never a disappointment. I say all of this because...of course, I loved this book! I thought it was a fun read and I loved getting to know Ellie more!

Once again I am reading a book by a comedian whose work I am not overly familiar with, although I have been told I would like their work. If you already know you don't like the author's comedy, this book is obviously not for you. I liked her work in Bridesmaids, so I gave this a shot.

I thought this was a fairly straightforward stream-of-consciousness (with editing) representation of Kemper's humor and improv skills. Kemper does not shy away from the fact that she comes from a privileged background that let her do things like taking improv classes in Chicago while holding down an unpaid internship and become an improv artist in New York while not having to worry about holding down a day job. That said she also goes into detail about how much work she has put into her craft, from all the classes she has taken, the shows she has written/performed, and auditions from commercials and shows she has done.

I would give the book 3 out of 5 stars.

First off, I have to say I love Ellie Kemper and am a big fan of hers. That being said, I think my expectations for this book were really high.

The writing itself is good. The problem is that it’s just a little dry. The stories weren’t super fun or exciting. I didn’t find myself excited to pick up the book and finish reading it. The footnotes were unbelievably annoying and made me keep flipping back and forth as well.

I usually love memoirs from actors, so I thought this would be right up my alley. I was sad to find out I had overestimated the book. I think the book actually needed more about her time on “The Office” and on “Kimmy Schmidt”. Also, she kind of paints herself to be a jerk, like when she freaks out over lentils and over not having a thong. She also talks about how she would never suggest helping anyone and found that to be truly out of character for herself. I appreciated her honesty, but made her kind of seem like a diva a little bit.

I received an ARC courtesy of NetGalley in exchange for an honest opinion.

Not my favorite book, but I wasn’t disappointed. I like Ellie Kemper and I enjoyed the voice of her book. There were some funny parts. I’m not really sure why actors get asked to write memoirs all the time. And it seems like Kemper wonders the same thing. So I appreciate that.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC!

I've been a fan of Ellie for a long time, but was slightly worried about this book because I feel like she's so typecast and has such a voice that, while endearing, can also be a tad bit annoying. Her memoir ended up showing me that she basically has all the good parts of her characters in her real personality (sweet, kind, quirky), but is also so much more (smart, down-to-Earth). Her "Kimmy Schmidt voice" (how I refer to it!) definitely comes out at times, but not to the point of ridiculousness.

I enjoyed My Squirrel Days because I learned so much about Ellie that I had no idea about. She had such a seemingly normal childhood and one that I could relate to in many ways. Though she always loved performing with her family, it wasn't until college that she really got into acting and improv. Even then, she interned at an ad agency and though she was a go-getter, didn't seem to be obsessed with making an acting career happen. She's just talented and after performing and auditioning enough, it all paid off.

I didn't love every essay in the collection and I felt like some were lacking a bit... Parts made me laugh out loud, but some chapters felt a bit pointless. I can also think of a million more topics I wish Ellie would have dove into more- I wanted more about Kimmy Schmidt and more about her relationships with some of the awesome people she's worked with. But I feel like she kept some topics off-limits and was probably careful about what she disclosed in the book.

Overall, if you're a fan of Ellie and have followed her acting career, this book is a really great way to get to know another side of her and have a few laughs!