My Life as a Goddess: A Memoir through (Un)Popular Culture

This is the best memoir I have read thus far. Guy Branum holds a special place in my heart because he defended me at a comedy show and then proceeded to do a joke about the Jewish holiday of Sukkot that only I and my friends were able to appreciate. His book is everything I wanted and more. From the poignant and hilarious descriptions of his childhood surroundings to the heart-wrenching chapter about his father to the dish about his various experiences as a comedy writer, every page was entertaining and insightful. And, of course, there is a footnote joke about Adar Sheini, which is exactly the kind of niche Jewish sidenote I have come to expect from Guy.

I will admit, I had no idea who Guy was before I read this book, not even an iota. After reading this though, I am in awe that I somehow completely overlooked his whole career. He's so funny! How did our paths never cross? Part memoir, part humor, part history and pop culture lesson; this memoir is unique and entirely fun to read. I'm a huge fan of footnotes and there are A TON of footnotes; humorous asides, sarcastic comments, clarification, etc. It's genius! The stories I enjoyed the most were the ones where Guy is rehashing his youth growing up in a quasi-Jewish home in the redneck hills of California as a giant gay child. It's humorous, real, raw at parts, but he never loses levity. Another great celebrity memoir by someone you may show more or may not have heard of, but are certainly glad you did by the end of the book. show less

Guy Branum is great at two things: 1) being funny; 2) knowing exactly which personal and cultural circumstances make him funny.

He also appears to have the entirety of pop culture at his fingertips and ready to deploy in any situation, no matter how tenuous the link or how Rube Goldbergian the analogy. 10% of the time this is an annoying compulsion, but 90% of the time it's delightful.

This cemented my Guy fandom. Some moments of beauty and perfection in this tome, with a dash of snark and a whole lot of pop culture love with no shame. Some of the Berkeley in the 90s references were super spot on.

I stumbled on this by way of Twitter recommendations, of all things, and I'm glad I read it, even though I have nearly zero interest in Chelsea Handler, or any of the other projects with which Branum has been involved. Which proves to be a bit of a problem when discussions about those projects becomes the focus of the book for a while toward the much less philosophical, less interesting (more performative, and kind of wheel-spinny) final third, excepting the last chapter, which tidies up nicely the section before.

Or maybe I'm reacting to the fact that it isn't a narrative in which everything turns out great, or is perceived to turn out great. Or maybe it is that it has a more gloomy view of how gay people are treated than I would hope show more for as a cis het guy.

I don't think so, but I'm leaving open the possibility.

The book is laugh-out-loud funny, surprisingly profound, at times, and is well performed in audiobook format. If you have any patience at all for these sorts of books, this is one of the much better ones. show less

Loved loved loved. The structure, the content, the voice, the narrative arc. So smart. So full.

A coming-of-age and coming-out story and a ferociously smart, singular voice. Or: how to live an examined life if you're Different. Get the audiobook if you can... Branum reads it himself.