Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography

I received this book from BloggingForBooks in exchange for an honest review.

First, I just want to explain this book. It is the story of Neil Patrick Harris's life. However it is a twist on the typical autobiography. When you get to the end of the chapter, there is a footnote that gives you between 1 and 3 choices of where you can take the story next. This book is not meant to be read cover to cover. Rather it is meant to be read multiple times, choosing different stories to tell.

This book was so unique and I loved it. I don't tend to read non-fiction, let alone autobiographies, but this book was just as entertaining as what I typically read. Between choosing how the story would end, plus the second person POV, it was great. I also loved the “guest” writers like Kelly Rippa and Barney Stinson. I loved how it was written as if you were experiencing Neil Patrick Harris's life. I decided for this first time reading that I would go with always choosing the happier option or most entertaining one.

Some of the endings throughout the book are hilarious. Especially the Joss Whedon one! This book was full of fun, quirky lines that had me giggling to myself and getting weird looks. But it was worth it. This was a fun light read that I really enjoyed diving into. Neil Patrick Harris's humor and shows are great and this book really showcased that. I also really loved the drawings and pictures throughout the book.

I think this is one of those books that you have to have the physical book for. Between the pictures and the drawings, and even the little footnotes, I don't think an ebook format would work well. Even the idea of flipping through the book following into the next story would not translate well in a ebook format.

On a side note, the back blurb is great. It just added to how much I enjoyed this book!

The choose-your-own-adventure format is fun at first, but it gets old pretty quickly. I just read the book like normal, and it made perfect sense to me.

NPH seems like a really genuine, nice guy. He's a surprisingly good writer, funny and engaging. There aren't many shocking revelations (any, now that I think about it) or juicy bits of gossip (a little, not much) in this book, it's just a straightforward and undeniably charming look at a performer that also happens to seem like a pretty cool person.

I have a love/hate relationship with Choose Your Own Adventure books. While I obsessively re-read every permutation of The Curse of the Golden Idol in my childhood, I also read the back of the ketchup bottle and the cereal box. I was terrified to miss out on any written word. This meant that I would have to ‘go to' every option and back again, my books were a mess of scraps of paper and bookmarks as I attempted to leave no option unexplored.
I started NPH Choose Your Own Autobiography in the same way, enjoying that the e-book ‘back' button simplified the messy method of my childhood. However, quickly I gave up and decided to read it straight through despite the author's intentions (it's not as though NPH is going to find out and turn up on my doorstep to give me a talking to!).
It really didn't matter! I thoroughly enjoyed walking through NPH's life with him even if it was a bit mixed up. He seems like a genuinely lovely guy who I'd love to just sit and blether with. And there's a cocktail recipe, how to make the best Spaghetti Bolognese from scratch, a NPG cryptic crossword and some extremely embarrassing photos of our host!
Loved, loved, loved it!

Book Review: Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris - one of the better celebrity memoirs I have read. The choose your own aspect was missing in the audiobook, but almost everyone that I know read it straight through anyway.

Click through for the full review on my blog http://bookwi.se/neil-patrick-harris-choose-your-own-autobiography/