Born a Crime/ Trevor Noah/ 288 pgs

This was a book discussion title. I really didn't know that much about comedian and Daily Show host Trevor Noah. I thought this might be more of a biography but I think it's probably more memoir, with vignettes from his young life. The look at life in South Africa in the recent past was eye-opening and comprehensive for such a short book. I wasn't quite sure what to make of Trevor. He never really made excuses for his behavior but he did try to explain why he did the things he did as a boy/young man and how living under apartheid (when he was very young) and then living in newer, more open but still stifling South Africa affected him and his family. The book has its amusing moments but I wouldn't say it's laugh out loud. If you're a fan of his, it's definitely worth reading.

Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography / Neil Patrick Harris / 291 pgs

Leave it to NPH to come up with this "Choose Your Own Adventure" style format for his autobiogaphy. For the most part, I enjoyed this book. The choose your own adventure format allows you to quickly read through his book in the span of an afternoon and get most of the major plot points of NPH's life story. However, you won't get all of it. For that, you need to sit down and read the book cover to cover and know that you'll be skipping around most of his life, but that's alright. Even then, you still will finish the book in a day with no problem. NPH doesn't WANT you to do that, however, as there are a couple of hidden pages you shouldn't find yourself on UNLESS you read cover to cover.

My only misgiving is that NPH is frank about drug use. Though he says he never used cocaine or heroin, fearing what others might think of him - "There goes a total cokehead!" - he seems quite open about his use of pot, even recounting a time not long ago when he and his partner, David, got some in Amsterdam and lit up in a scary Irish castle that evening. Or he talks about the time he tripped on acid in New Mexico and thought he saw that a tree was made up of frogs hanging from the branches by their hind legs. That wasn't my cup of tea and I found the blasé way NPH refers to his drug use as disheartening.

Read it for the humor, however, don't believe everything you read.