Review: Self-Inflicted Wounds

Self-Inflicted Wounds
Heart-warming tales of epic humiliation
by Aisha Tyler
Amazon  /  Goodreads

Plot Summary:

self-inflicted wound (n): a spectacularly humiliating, and often hilarious, incident entirely of one's own making.
see also: you did it to yourself.

Have you ever made a decision you instantly regretted? Humiliated yourself in a room of your peers, or shamed yourself in front of your massive crush? Ever blown a job interview, frozen during a presentation, acted like a total idiot on a date? Ever said the wrong thing at the wrong time, unable to keep your tongue from flapping out the stupidest words you've ever said in your life, ever? If you are a human being, the answer, of course, is yes. Take heart. You're not alone. This is known as the Self-Inflicted Wound, and every one of us bears a scar. Or several.

Here, Aisha Tyler, comedian, actress, cohost of CBS's The Talk, star of Archer, and creator of the top-ranked podcast Girl on Guy, serves up a spectacular collection of her own self-inflicted wounds. From almost setting herself on fire, to vomiting on a boy she liked, to getting drunk and sleeping through the SATs, to going into crushing debt to pay for college and then throwing away her degree to become a comedian, Aisha's life has been a series of spectacularly epic fails. And she's got the scars to prove it. Literally.

Through it all, Aisha's triumphs haven't come in spite of the failures, but because of them. Because with every failure comes a lesson learned, a strength revealed, a fear overcome, or an adventure braved. Self-Inflicted Wounds isn't just about surviving failure. It's about embracing failure—pursuing it, even—on the winding path to success. And after you've failed a time or three, hopefully you'll have learned something. Or at the very least have a really killer story. Because to err is human, but to fail epically is hilarious.

Review:

Aisha Tyler's voice in this book is outstanding.  She's so witty and erudite, and everything she describes in each of her stories are alternately charming and horrifying.  And funny.  She walks that line so well.  Each of her tales of self-inflicted wounds (bad things that happen to you and are totally your own fault) are also a mix - of stories you can relate to, and stories you can't believe anyone would allow to have happen to them.  But they are all engaging, and the story a chapter format makes it very easy to keep reading, especially if you are eager to know what spectacular thing has happened to warrant the enticing sounding chapter title.

The truly great thing about each story though is how Aisha manages to turn it into a message - a learned lesson that for the most part encourages people to embrace what is different about themselves and also embrace that it is inevitable that we all will make mistakes.  There are some interesting insights into human nature that comes from being very observant, and throughout it all we get a glimpse of Aisha's childhood which is almost another story in itself.  Aisha's love of books and learning also made me very happy (although she had some very esoteric reading material sometimes) as I could completely relate to that.

This book is full of footnotes, which Aisha uses to add in little funny asides that add even more humor to her stories.  Even though I'm usually not crazy about having to read footnotes, I started to look to the bottom even before I began the page to see what funny comment or reference Aisha made there.  Although that didn't help me get into my reading flow.  There are times too when Aisha can be too wordy and excessive in her metaphors - even though everything she says is completely entertaining, I thought it sometimes slowed down the pace of the book.  This isn't a big deal though because she gets to the meat of her stories pretty quickly and this book is so entertaining, fun, thoughtful and intelligent.