The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year by Andy Cohen; Henry Holt, $26
Choose Your Own Autobiography by Neil Patrick Harris; Crown Books, $26
Has the reality-TV circus gone too far? Not for ringleader Andy Cohen, whose newly released epistolary mini-memoir depicts a year in his life as the Bravo television network's gay golden boy. In The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year, he's a chatty, effervescent tour guide escorting readers along the kind of glitzy, self-indulgent red carpet he's become well-accustomed to, yet doesn't seem to enjoy all that much. For all of the star sightings and parties and Housewives reunion showdowns, Cohen does a lot of kvetching.
Aside from the daily business-life of a Bravo executive producer, the author's "human" side pops up quite often. The book softens in places where Cohen writes about his dog, Wacha, a constant companion who offers so much more than the occasional unconditional love and support (pet owners can surely relate), or when he waxes nostalgic for his youth in the early 1990s, acknowledging that today's New York City is "less glamorous and debauched, but no less fun."
While there's a certain thrill that comes from reading about how Cher and Madonna behave (does Madge really mouth the words to her own songs at parties?) or what they text and tweet, we can also sincerely appreciate the more charmless, cringeworthy aspects of his showbiz life, which is shared generously and quite candidly throughout.
Cohen, 46, writes of being just a "wide-eyed twenty-one-year-old intern at CBS News" back in 1989 when his journalism career had just begun, but that's about as far back as he's willing to go. The book's year-in-the-life chronology launches in the fall of 2013, when he gets U.S. Open tickets for his parents and he writes of sitting in front of a humorless Martha Stewart and behind Kevin Spacey, who sported a "face full of makeup" and three male companions who "were definitely not raising any questions." Celebrity outing seems to be something Cohen feels justified to partake in, apparently.
The latitude of this self-proclaimed "pop culture obsessive" seems endless as Cohen gleefully glosses across days spent taking business calls while getting massages, and nights hosting Bravo's Watch What Happens Live, where Lady Gaga once urinated in her dressing-room garbage can.
A good portion of the material is gratuitously titillating; however, in a nearly 350-page book, this leaves plenty of room for lukewarm scenes with his doorman Surfin, screeching at a beetle infestation in his bathroom, and mean-spiritedly pondering the demise of his elderly upstairs neighbor so he can convert his condo into a duplex. This leaves the truly pedestrian: do readers really care that the author ate French onion soup and branzino at a stiff dinner with his ex?
Cohen's opinions of the unmitigated cruelty apparent within our own community ("Gay people will eat other gay people alive"), of his loneliness, of his struggles with weight issues, and of finding love in the age of social-media devilry are refreshingly grounded, anchoring all the silly gossip to the real dirt found in everyday life.
So the book's "shallow" subtitle can be construed as something of a misnomer, as there is indeed some substance in these pages. But there are also mountains of fluff �" depending upon how much importance you place on Madonna's career, dating on Tinder, and a summer vacation spent chasing Speedos on Fire Island. Ultimately, Cohen is an affable, hyperactively goofy, and exceedingly self-deprecating narrator. Though his book is often "grossly opportunistic" (Cohen's own words), it's still a definite must-have item for readers who thirst for endless pages of Hollywood dish or those dedicated viewers of Bravo TV's melodramatic Real Housewives franchise.
Freedom of choice
Neil Patrick Harris' considerably larger fan-base will revel in his new autobiography, Choose Your Own Autobiography. Curiously, it's been modeled after the Choose Your Own Adventure game-book series, replete with illustrations, photographs, a "cryptic crossword puzzle," shticky commentary on gay life, and a heartfelt chapter on life with his partner, actor and chef David Burtka, and the surrogacy process gifting them with the birth of twins.
Of course, there is sufficient detail of Harris' youth growing up in Ruidoso, New Mexico, and of his stage and screen stardom on such hits as Doogie Howser, M.D. and How I Met Your Mother, and of more recent work in the Broadway production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (he won a Tony Award), the film Gone Girl, and the fan-favorite, gothic television drama American Horror Story.
The narrative even delves into the more provocative parts of Harris' life, in the form of past LSD trips and sex romps courtesy of the "golden age" of AOL chat rooms. The book further branches out to include cocktail recipes, magic card-tricks courtesy of "Neil the Magnificent," Doogie Howser references, campy celebrity "cameos," and a few pages of silly Twitter tweets.
Though there's nothing too terribly earth-shattering to be found in either of these two autobiographies, there is sufficient cuteness and clever creativity to please the masses. It just depends on whether readers prefer their celebrity memoir vigorously shaken (Cohen) or gingerly stirred (Harris).