Book Review: The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo - Amy Schumer Amy Schumer is everywhere these days. She has an Emmy winning television show, Inside Amy Schumer, on Comedy Central. In 2015, she released the film Trainwreck, which she starred in and co-wrote with Judd Apatow. The film was a monetary and critical success, earning over $100 million at the box office in the United States and garnering two Golden Globe award nominations. Schumer also landed her first HBO special, Amy Schumer: Live at the Appollo, which aired last year and was directed by Chris Rock. These feats lead to her being named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2015.
Now she’s ventured into the literary world with her first book, The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, which debuted at number one on The New York Times Non-Fiction Best Seller list in September. The book contains hilarious and poignant personal essays on a range of topics that include dating, family, feminism, food, friendship, gun violence, introversion, money, sexual assault, and shoplifting. Particularly amusing passages of the book include entries from a diary she kept throughout her teenage years. These entries are updated with present day footnotes in which she often lampoons her younger self in a delightfully self-deprecating manner. Widely known for her raunchy styled comedy, Schumer doesn’t stray from her brand, though she admits that she’s surprisingly only had one true one night stand. She writes frankly about her body and sexual experiences, but it never comes across as gratuitous. We know she’s funny and raunchy. That makes the serious chapters of the book even more meaningful. She implores young women to have confidence, self-esteem, and to stand up for themselves and urges them to get out of abusive relationships. Her advice is eloquent and sincere. One especially emotional section of the book details the aftermath of a shooting that took place in a movie theatre in Lafayette, Louisiana. A gunman killed two women and injured nine others before killing himself at a screening of Schumer’s film, Trainwreck. The incident led her to become more outspoken about the need for gun safety legislation. She has since worked with her distant cousin, U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, to advocate for stronger gun safety regulations. While the book does reveal several biographical details, she is quick to point out that it is not a memoir. At 35, she considers herself too young to write a memoir and asserts there is plenty of time left for that. I certainly look forwarding to hearing more of what she has to say and eagerly await reading her memoir or next collection of personal essays. This review first appeared in The Leaf.
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