The Bedwetter: Stories of Courage, Redemption, and Pee

I found the book to be enjoyable. It's a memoir, the life story of the comedian, Sarah Silverman, where she seems pretty sincere in writing about what appear to be the major milestones of her life. She does not hold back in her forthright profuse description of sexual and potty stuff, while also revealing a person with very moral and ethical values when it comes to the really important things the world faces. From the book, I found these things worth noting:1.She writes about her bedwetting as a youth and how it affected her, depressing her quite a bit. Her father and his father were also bedwetters. The depression peaked with her taking as many as 16 Xanax pills a day2. She talks about a key bad experience with a boyfriend, early on.3. She became a vegetarian out of her concern for animals.4. At 13, when visiting her sister at Berkeley, she got exposed to drugs by a neighbor of hers and he also gave her a gift of Playgirl and Penthouse magazines, and she claims that is what really began her focusing on sexual stuff for her comedy. Since the 3rd grade, she always knew she wanted to be a comedian.5. Her parents never hit her and they encouraged her and gave her lots of love. Beginning at age 15 her parents let her take shuttle trips from New Hampshire to New York City and she knew early on she wanted to eventually get out of New Hampshire and live in NYC. She said she felt like a goat among sheep in NH, but a goat among goats in NYC. She enrolled at NYU, majoring in drama, in Greenwich Village after HS. She would hand out flyers at a comedy club after classes eventually getting chances to do stand-up. She then quit NYU before starting her sophomore year and her dad offered to pay for her to live in NYC since it would be cheaper than going to NYU and he knew what she really wanted to do anyway - comedy, so she did that, living in Greenwich Village.6. Never had stage fright - she thinks because after she stopped bedwetting, nothing could be as embarrassing as that.7. Her approach to everything gross in life like drugs, sex, etc is to "make it a treat," that is everything in moderation.8. At 22 she got interviewed by Saturday Night Live and got hired as a writer/performer, however none of her skits made it past dress rehearsal and coincidentally or not was fired after one year after hitting Al Franken in the temple with a sharp pencil - a joke gone bad. She claims Chris Farley positively influenced her with an incident where Farley had been with SNL 3 years, but was still in awe of what had gone on before he came there. So, it gave her the strength to face future challenges.9. Always felt she didn't know how to dress and her disastrous Emmy Awards dress was a result.10. Being creative, she puts in a midword in her book, to take a break and say what she was doing when not writing. Likewise, she wrote her own foreword in the book - she claims groundbreaking.11. She writes about disputes with the publisher/editor about things like the title and other stuff.12. She writes about the racism she sees in the media - more nuanced than in the past - really uses her comedy to fight racism.13. She writes about her incidents as host at MTV award shows - and her loss of tact with her comments about Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.14. Writes about her film, "Jesus is Magic" and the "Sarah Silverman Program" on Comedy Central and how the network was tolerant of her edgy stuff also showing some of the hate mail she received about how God was presented in her program. Also writes about her pro-union position even when facing cost control issues from the network.15. She talks about love and that she only really needs a man around a lot is for watching TV while cuddling in bed.17. Near the end of the book she has a chapter writing about being a Jew and what she thinks about Judaism - although she is secular she thinks Judaism is an OK religion, with many criticisms about Catholicism like the ostentacious Vatican and the child-abusing priests. When her parents divorced, although the divorce worked out well, she did spend time in a convent while her mom worked, and she was very critical of the violence used by the nuns for discipline. She realizes she comes across as a Jew and for that Jews like her and she is proud of "The Great Schlep" where she helped Obama win support of Florida's elderly Jews. She then has an afterward where she has God reflect about things like being nice to her in letting her finish the book.Overall, since Sarah Silverman is controversial, I recommend the book for those who like her, but probably not for those who don't.

Here's the thing. I WANT to like Sarah Silverman. That's why I read this book. I've always been aware of her. We're close in age, she's wildly successful, I love comedy. It would make sense for me to like her. I don't dislike everything she's done. I've enjoyed her on podcasts when she's sort of "off the cuff". But I feel like anything she does pre-meditatedly just sort of falls flat-at least for me. I liked parts of this book. I appreciated her willingness to share her struggles with bedwetting. I would have liked her to go more in depth about her depression and loss of her brother. I felt she didn't really give all of that it's due. Maybe because it was supposed to be funny but I didn't really get that either. Maybe it's just an issue of me not connecting with her specific style of humor. And let's be clear. I'm not opposed to blue humor. If it's funny to me, I'll laugh. Yes, humor is subjective. I'm not here to prove I'm right, I'm just sharing thoughts. Another thing I still struggle to understand, and this is probably because it doesn't affect my own life, is how she talks so much about feeling that her Jewishness is so noticeable. Maybe because I spent most of my life in the Midwest I never really understood or was aware of the stereotypes; I didn't know Jewish people had a certain look or type of name. As I've gotten older and especially through comedy I've learned some of the references. I even went through a period of exploration in my 20s where I read a lot about Judaism and became rather fascinated with the faith and underlying beliefs, as much as I could understand not having been raised in the faith. I guess the part I really struggle to understand, still, is how you can be Jewish ethnically and consider yourself Jewish even if your family was never religious. For example, I am Catholic. For me that means I was raised Catholic but no longer go to Mass. But you see I just capitalized the "M" in Mass. That's because even though I am no longer religious it has been so ingrained in me that certain rituals never fade away. I guess what I'm saying is I don't know how it goes to identify with a religion your family never practiced except I guess it's also an ethnicity but to me I could never just meet somebody and think, "Oh, they're Jewish," unless it was a man wearing a yarmulke or something.Ok, that was a bit of a tangent. Much like Sarah's book! I will say I enjoyed the first half of it, which was much more about her history and struggles growing up, than the second half when it was a bunch of stories about comics back in the early days, hanging out in New York, just cracking each other up. I mean, that's great if you were there. But it's not as interesting to hear about it as an outsider 20 years after the fact. And then the saga of TSSP. Yes, we get it. But please continue to give us the blow by blow of how each minute of getting the show, the writers strike, almost losing the show, declining the show, accepting the show....oh my God! And yes, we know you love poop jokes and penis jokes and fart jokes and vagina jokes and somehow it's a feminist issue that you can talk all about dicks but then the censors are up in your business if you want to graphically describe a labia because they don't get how hilarious it is. Whatever! I feel like a lot of her career has been built on her just being as extreme as possible, somebody gets pissed off, calls her on the carpet, she explains how the joke was a social commentary, the people get angrier, and on and on. She does admit that defending a joke is one of the least funniest things a person can do. And yes, I'm sorry, but I do think her being gorgeous has helped her to be as successful as she is. She can go on for days about being hairy and looking "Jew-y" but forget it, you look like you're in your 20s, you are a truly slender, beautiful woman, and I can't help but think that has helped you-just a tad.I mean, let's think of someone else who enjoys shock value and isn't nearly as pretty-how about Roseanne Barr? What is she up to these days? Exactly my point.

Okay, so the first half of the book is excellent, but the second half was not. Silverman is admirably candid with her thoughts and experiences, and it's interesting to read about the hurdles she faced in early life. The further through the book I got, the more I realised her humour is not for me. In her own words:'At some point, I figured that it would be more effective and far funnier to embrace the ugliest, most terrifying things in the world—the Holocaust, racism, rape, et cetera'That said, the book is eleven years old, so she may have evolved beyond racial and religious slurs, un-pc terms, etc (though I don't think it would have been funny back then either). She mentions having to write apology letters to multiple people who were publicly offended by her jokes, but ultimately blames them for not getting her humour, and MTV, etc, for setting her up. Surely, as the writer and performer, the onus is on solely on her. She also couldn't get through a chapter without referring to how Jewish she is, despite later revealing:'I have no religion, I grew up in a non-observant household' and later stating:'I talk about being Jewish in my act more than I’m really entitled to, considering that I’m an agnostic at best who has no background of participation in Jewish traditions other than nausea.'Maybe her heritage is so ingrained she feels the need to constantly refer to it, but it feels odd, almost akin to declaring you're a vegetarian, because you come from a long line of vegetarians, even though you and your family have always eaten meat. Maybe I'm just confused and I don't get it.

I recently read Miranda Hart's autobiography and found it very disappointing. Having enjoyed her standup before, I thought I would love her book, but instead I found it very try-hard and not very funny. On the other hand, I never really watched much of Sarah Silverman's stuff, always thinking she was a bit crude, but after seeing a few interviews with her for Wreck-it-Ralph, I thought I would give this book a try.I absolutely loved it, couldn't put it down, and wish there was more. It is hilarious. It follows the same pattern as Miranda Hart's book, in that at times she talks directly to the reader about writing the book, talking with the publishers, how slow the process is etc, but she does it so well. There are a few pictures in there too. There is some swearing in the book, so maybe it's not suitable for everyone, and it does involve sex, drugs, and depression, but all dealt with in a very funny way.I may read this again. Can't say enough good things about it.

I have got to a point in the book where I have stopped reading it. I will try again, and see if it picks up. The point that I have reached is after Sarah is successful and in which she is doing battles with corporate America in order to get air time for her particular brand of humour.There were parts of the book which were genuinely interesting. These are the parts where she reveals what makes her tick. Why she is, the way she is.I don't doubt her courage.I just got a bit fed up at a certain point. It might improve. It won't appeal to everyone."Women masturbate when they should be doing their homework."

I like Sarah Silverman. She is funny and clearly intelligent. Unfortunately, there is a lot of 'filler' in this book: lots of emails that were sent to her; scans of adverts and promotions - a little bit lazy writing, like she had ran out of ideas and was padding it out. When she is writing narrative, it is funny though. I only read on Kindle, but this is a book that must be read in paperback as there is loads of stuff in it that can't be read on a Kindle.

I'd never heard of Sarah Silverman until I saw her on Graham Norton's show. She made me laugh and mentioned her book so I thought, 'Why not'.This book isn't for everyone, there are very funny moments that had me laugh out loud in public places, parts that made me squirm with horror and parts that made me sad. But overall it was very entertaining.It's a five star for me because I tend to read thrillers and fantasy and find autobiogs boring. But I couldn't put this one down; it is the only autobiog that I've been able to finish.Well donePS Sarah if you read this, I'm a Christian and I loved you God material xo