Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography – Book Review

Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris

I finally finished this fun book. It took me a long time because sometimes I buy books and then keep them on my shelf for years before reading them. Sometimes I even wait for hours in line to have the book signed by the celebrity who wrote it, basking in my 1.5 seconds of breathing the same air as him, and STILL leave it on the shelf for years before reading it. (I don’t know why I do these things. Don’t ask.)

It also took a long time because the choose-your-own-adventure format of this memoir is CREATIVE and HILARIOUS and AWESOME, but it’s also a little confusing. When I started the book, I considered using sticky notes to mark the pages I’d read, but ultimately rejected that OCD idea, opting for a more organic experience instead. So I sat down and read and read and read about NPH’s early years and Doogie years and exploring-his-sexuality years. And then I read, read, read some more about his TV movies and his love of magic and his wonderful husband and their emotional journey into parenting. I got to “the end” multiple times and, eventually, decided I’d mostly finished the book. It was time to start back at the beginning and read only the pages that I’d skipped the first time around. This won’t take long. I’ll just make myself a cup of coffee and sit down and finish this thing.

I made the coffee. I sat down. I read. And read and read and read. It turns out, I was over 100 pages from finishing the book! The fact that I hadn’t yet read anything about his award-show hosting or How I Met Your Mother should have been a clue. Anyway, I continued in this manner until I was really– truly– finished with the book. Which was a couple of hours ago.

The fact that this book sat on a shelf for a couple of years and then confused me into thinking I’d finished it when really I’d only read half may make you think it wasn’t that good. But you’re wrong. Neil Patrick Harris is a great actor and a great singer and a great host, but he’s also a great writer. His anecdotes and footnotes and self-deprecating humor kept me smiling the whole way through, and his clever “alternate endings” are a nice touch and an amusing nod to the choose-your-own-adventure format.

All in all, it was fun hanging out with NPH for a few hundred pages. Despite the fact that my home (and life) bears no resemblance to that of his good friend Elton John, I think we’d get along.

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