Neil Patrick Harris

I'm pretty sure this is the only autobiography in history written in the style of a Choose Your Own Adventure story. And Neil Patrick Harris really commits to the format, complete with alternate endings in which he drowns in quicksand or something. Or you do, because the whole thing is in second person, which I found surprisingly easy to just go with. But then, like NPH, I grew up with Choose Your Own Adventure books and have immense nostalgic fondness for them. So I found the format fun. Of show more course, there is one difference between this and an actual Choose Your Own Adventure book, which is that (goofy bad endings notwithstanding), the "choices" aren't really choices about how the story is going to go -- since, one way or another, it's just the real events of this one guy's life. Instead, they're mostly choices about which bit of his life you want to read about next, with the result that you end up jumping back and forth in time a lot and getting things all out of order. And, entertaining as I found the gimmick, there were times when I really wished for a little more linearity.

Gimmick aside, it's a pleasant read as celebrity memoirs go. Harris talks about his personal life with lots of cute, warm gushing about his husband and kids, and about his career with the requisite amount of name-dropping but not too much catty gossip. The tone is breezy and light and relentlessly, amiably humorous, and the reader's "choices" often lead to odd little asides featuring things like cocktail recipes or card tricks. If it were done in a more conventional format, I'm sure it would be a lot less memorable, but still likable enough.

(Side note: As it happens, I know someone who attended high school with Neil Patrick Harris. She told me once that he was a bit of a dick back then, but in retrospect she thought it was understandable, given the pressures of being that famous that young. I was a bit curious as to whether this volume would reinforce or refute that assertion, but it didn't really do either one. Which, fair enough. If I were writing an autobiography, I don't think I'd want to spend much time dwelling on what people thought of me in high school, either.) show less

This second in the Magic Misfits series is another enjoyable read but definitely not a standalone – you’ll want to read these in order. I love the group of kids involved in this story though this book didn’t focus as much on character development as the first. The glimpses into Leila’s backstory helped round her out, even if there was a little too much Little Orphan Annie about the elements of it. It is clear the series is building to a bigger denouement across all the books; I for show more one can’t wait to learn more about how Theo does what he does with a bow! The magic tricks and codes provide some additional fun for any budding sleuths or performers. show less

This is the second book in Neil Patrick Harris' series about a group of friends and their magic club. (That's stage magic, for the record, not Harry Potter-type stuff, although it's sometimes a bit ambiguous whether there's anything actually supernatural going on.)

My review of the first installment in this series was that it was "an okay but pretty forgettable kids' book." Forgettable enough that I definitely wouldn't have bothered with the second book if a friend hadn't given me both show more volumes at once. But I found the story in this one -- involving secrets from the past and a supposed psychic who may be hiding something -- to quite a bit more engaging. Enough so that I was actually genuinely kind of annoyed that it ended with a "to be continued," leaving at least some of the mysteries still mysterious. Although I kind of doubt that will motivate me to seek out volume three when it comes out, anyway. It's definitely still the kind of kids' book that's best read by actual kids, I think. I know that I would have appreciated the magic tricks it includes a lot more when I was a youngster (although I would undoubtedly have been bad at them), and kid me would probably have found the bits where we're supposed to decipher Morse code fun rather than mildly tedious. show less

Oh my god!

I only know NPH (as he calls himself. Or as you're calling him. Or as you're calling yourself.) as Barney Stinson on How I Met Your Mother, so I wasn't sure how I'd feel about his (my?) autobiography.

It's written in second person, by the way. As in, he addresses himself as YOU. This makes for some funny jokes and some lame ones.

It also gives him the advantage of blatant braggery that doesn't come off that way at all... because he's talking about YOU.

It may have just been a fun show more gimmick, but it really fucking worked.

And there were enough goddamn hilarity in here that I'm afraid this memoir will have the same effect on me as Wicked (the musical) did. It was the first musical I'd ever seen, it blew my mind, and every one after that was complete garbage.

I was going to subtract a star because I got to the end way too fast, missed a lot, and had to start over and go page by page... but then of course I didn't.

Definitely a book I need to own in hardcover.

PS: Neil Patrick Harris suggests Applebee's to his friends. In the same chapter in which he describes Elton John's house in Nice. show less