What a fun read! I love Parks & Recreation and jumped at the chance to read Jim O’Heir’s book. This book had a great balance of insight into Jim O’Heir’s career and the behind-the-scenes of Parks and Rec. I really enjoyed the quotes he brought in from various cast & crew members. It's the perfect book for any Parks & Rec fan.

Thank you to Netgalley & William Morrow for the ARC in exchange for an honest review!

Welcome to Pawnee by Jim O'Heir--a memoir and look back at Parks and Rec by the actor who played Jerry. I love this show but found I was less interested in O'Heir's personal musings. This book releases on 11/19. Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the advance digital copy.

Jim O'Heir, who played Jerry on Parks & Recreation, and his stories of making this beloved sitcom may be better suited to podcasting as a format rather than writing. While it certainly gives the impression of a nice guy who loves working in comedy, his voice is just a little too informal, a little too simple to make the work feel like a well-crafted memoir. This is exacerbated by the structure flowing back and forth between O'Heir's writing and long quotes from other cast and crew members. Hopefully formatting of the final book will make these block quotes stand out, but in the review copy I was provided, it was sometimes difficult to tell when one voice stopped and O'Heir's resumed. There are some nice tidbits about the show, but it's not the best show biz memoir out there.

Leslie Knope is legit who (ironically) inspired me to get my Master's and become a librarian. I've loved Parks and Rec since college, so when I found out Jim O'Heir wrote a book, I could not wait for it to get to Goodreads.

It's a memoir mostly focused on his time in Parks and Rec. The fact that there isn't "hot gossip" in the book is refreshing, and feeds my theory the cast actually liked each other. The book ends a bit abruptly once he talks about the last day on set, but I guess that's to be expected since it focuses on the book. Either way, if it's Parks and Rec related, I will read it.

Thanks, NetGalley!

I’ve always loved Parks and Rec, As an Hoosier, I have always been super proud that it was based in Indiana. I enjoyed reading Jim’s stories and insight behind the scenes. I can’t wait to rewatch and reread this book again.

O'Heir shares behind-the-scenes stories from his time on "Parks and Recreation" alongside his own journey as an actor. It's a lot of fun, recommended for fans of the show.

Living in Indiana and going to college in Muncie (the city map is in the opening credits of Parks and Rec, just upside down) and now working near Carmel (Eagleton) in a Library this book was MADE for me. I loved this series when it was on and it's still one of my comfort watches. As a Librarian or a "Punk Ass Book Jockey" it simply delighted to journey back to Pawnee. Thank You Jim!

As someone who has watched Parks and Recreation all the way through several times on streaming and still turns on random episodes when they air during syndication, I truly enjoyed this book. Jim O’Heir (Garry/Jerry/Larry/Terry Gergich on the show) provides a heartwarming history of what it was like to film Parks and Rec for seven years. Jim also provides some insights about his life as an actor outside of being on the show. Several other cast members and crew also provide their insights throughout the book, and there are quite a few great behind-the-scenes photos.

There weren’t any sordid details or gossip about cast members that came out in this book, if that’s what you’re looking for. Rather, Jim shares heartwarming, comedic, and fun memories from his time on the show and beyond. From the way Jim presents it, the cast and crew were as close off-camera as they appeared to be on screen. Jim talks a lot about his close relationship with Retta while filming and this was something I was not aware of. The book is a fun, quick read filled with never-before-told stories, and I flew through it.

If you are a fan of Parks and Recreation and want the opportunity to go back to Pawnee to experience these characters again in an even more intimate setting, I recommend checking this book out.

I really wanted to like this, but I was disappointed by how boring this was. This was neither a memoir about the author’s life, or a complete oral story of Parks and Rec. It was just some disjointed behind the scenes facts and a lot of Chris Pratt hero worship.

What a lovely book! I loved hearing all of the behind-the-scenes stories from Parks and Recreation. It made me have an even deeper appreciation for the show and everyone involved in making it. The pictures were a fun addition as well. I appreciated that there were also interviews from the creators and other cast members. Overall, it was super cool!

I love Parks and Recreation. It's one of my favorite sitcoms of all-time. I was so happy to read this book by Jim O'Heir who played the delightfully clumsy Jerry. This is a behind-the-scenes look of his time on the sitcom. The show lasted 7 incredible seasons. This book was fun and interesting but lacked something. I'm not sure why I didn't love this book more, it felt a little flat and underwhelming, but overall, this is a quick read if you're a fan of the show and Jim O'Heir.

If you're a fan of Parks and Recreation, then this book is for you! I really enjoyed reading all of the anecdotes, as told by Jim O'Heir, as well as others from the show. I love the show and have been the biggest fan for a long time, but I learned so much from this book and it felt like a warm hug and coming home to family. Some of the stories felt more surface level, and didn't reveal too much, but most of them were fun and made my fan heart happy. One issue I have with the book (at least the ebook) was the formatting was awful, and many of the images either didn't show up, were jumbled, or had their descriptions/captions is very odd places and didn't match the photo it was trying to tie to. Aside from that, I enjoyed this book and I know others will too, whether die hard fans or not. This was really a trip down memory lane and the show remains timeless. I will be starting my rewatch of Parks and Recreation as soon as my review is posted!

3.5 stars

Jim O’Heir, best known for his character of Jerry on Parks and Recreation, shares a heartfelt behind-the-scenes look at the making of the show. With stories and reflections from cast members like Chris Pratt, Retta, and Greg Daniels, we get a glimpse of what it was like working on one of the most loved sitcoms in recent years, including anecdotes that haven’t been shared before.

While it’s a nice read for Parks and Rec enthusiasts, the narrative occasionally feels like a long, meandering ramble. There’s a bit too much emphasis on Jim's admiration for Chris Pratt, and at times, it feels repetitive. I also expected more insight into Jim’s personal life, but, aside from a small sidebar about the death of his mother, the narrative focuses centrally on his career and his co-stars. All in all, it’s a fun read, but I was left wanting a bit more depth.

As a huge Parks and Rec fan (probably the biggest, but who can say) I was really excited to read this book. Sadly, this book gives less of an inside scoop and more of a rehashing of old stories that have already been told many times in interviews, YouTube videos, articles, and the Parks and Recollection podcast. The only thing I hadn’t already heard much about was the close friendship between Jim O’Heir and Retta. I’ve also never been more sure that a memoir was not ghostwritten, and unfortunately it’s because the writing here is pretty bad. O’Heir circles tangentially through stories from auditions and sets and photoshoots, needing to frequently say “but back to my original topic.” We also hear about multiple completely unrelated events from his career, from shooting other movies to the time he met Mary Tyler Moore (this anecdote was several pages long). There were also a few language choices that felt extremely dated and at times offensive. Again disappointing because I was so excited to get to read this.

As a huge fan of Parks and Rec when I saw that Jim Heir was writing a memoir I knew I needed to read it. His stories were a sweet recollection of his time on the show. I loved the inside view.

I enjoyed this memoir, not only does it give you a behind the scenes look of the life of Jerry (Gary, Terry, Larry) on set from Parks and Rec, but also a look at Jim O'Heir's life as well. You will laugh, you will cry, you get to reminiscence a wonderful TV show. There were some places in the book where I was wondering how it tied to Parks and Rec or Jim, but it always got there in the end. I would highly recommend any fan of Parks and Rec to pick up this book when it comes out!

Welcome to Pawnee

For fans of Parks and Recreation, Welcome to Pawnee will be a fun look behind the scenes at Jim O’Heir’s experience on the show. The actor behind the often mistreated gentle sweetheart if Jerry/Gary/Larry Gurgich gives interesting insight into the creation and production of the show as well as some anecdotes about his experiences in the industry as a whole.

While the content itself of the book was entertaining and gripping as a fan of the show, there is some work to be done structurally. There is little transition between one story and the next, and the narration jumps pretty abruptly between, for example, stories from O’Heir’s early acting days to a recounting of how characters were cast. This combined with some pretty big formatting issues with the ebook make the reading experience pretty choppy a lot of the time. These are issues that I think could be easily fixed with some further editing, but they are definitely worth noting.

Overall, O’Heir gives readers a very personal first hand look into the making of Parks and Rec. It’s a great read for fans of the show looking to learn a little more behind the scenes information, and with further formatting and some rearranging the text, I could see this being even better.

This was an enjoyable, behind the scenes read, of Parks and Rec. Goes into some tangents regarding O'Heir's personal life, reading a bit more like a memoir of his experiences rather than as Parks centered as I thought it would be. Overall, I found the book enjoyable.

I love books like this. Reading the background stories and anecdotes about my favorite shows is a fave read and this was a great one. Love these peaks into how shows were made and how the cast was together.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC for review.

As a longtime fans of Parks, and the more recent Parks and Recollection podcast, I was excited to read this book. Podcast host Jim O'Heir had been referring to this book for awhile now. While I enjoyed it, I did find that this often veered quickly between Parks memories and other stories in his life. Those other stories didn't always feel relevant. The language was sometimes crass and could have used a bit more editing. The e-book file was very difficult to follow. Probably 95% of the photos are missing, the empty frames sit in weird places, and the captions would be in the middle of other sentences. It was also hard to tell when a quote from a third party would end and Jim's narration would begin. These issues were very distracting to the reading of the book.