Book Review: Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography

image: Goodreads

Choose Your Own Autobiography
Neil Patrick Harris
Memoir
Published: October 2014

The book is written the second person you since yes--this is your adventure, and you get to choose how you partake in the life and times of actor Neil Patrick Harris. A clever concept.

I started out reading this with the same reaction I vaguely remember from a Choose Your Own Adventure book I took out from the library as a kid. "Will you run, or stay behind? To run, go HERE, to stay behind, GO HERE." What if I don't like the outcome, do I go back? But what's on the next page? What if I miss something?

Turns out, reading an autobiography this way is a lot of fun. Plus, it's kind of like living in the future on an e-reader--you can literally skip ahead with the touch of a button! Maybe you don't care to read about a party on Elton John's boat (but you should, because it's surreal), or you'd rather spend your lunchbreak reading about How I Met Your Mother's casting over a more serious topic like how NPH's sexuality was outed by Perez Hilton (though Perez makes a nice statement in the book about his actions).

Most memoir readers probably want the scoop on other celebrities. He only says a few unfavorable things, and not even accusatory, so if you're looking for dirt, this probably isn't the place. Saved by the Bell's Screech is called out for how the actor (Dustin Diamond) defamed NPH in his own autobio. NPH mainly dispels Diamond's tales of him and makes a light barb that's almost so light you'll miss it. And then he's off, recounting the exhilarating experience of  filming Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog, being a kid actor on a terrible movie with Little Richard, escapades with Harold and Kumar, 1990s made-for-TV movies. partying with Katy Perry's entourage, and some genuinely moving snippets about falling in love and raising a family. This is a fun read, with the added bonus of being able to read the adventure exactly as you want to.