In Brief
- Narration: Ellen DeGeneres reads her own material, which delivers authenticity but also a stilted quality in constructed joke passages noted by at least one reviewer.
- Themes: Finding humor in the everyday, the experience of unexpected fame, self-deprecation as connection
- Mood: Breezy and warm, with occasional moments of genuine sweetness
- Verdict: Best suited for existing fans of DeGeneres who want her voice specifically. The prose humor is stronger in stretches than the narration is consistent throughout.
I started Seriously I'm Kidding on a flight to New York where I had about three and a half hours to fill and nothing too demanding on the reading pile. It turned out to be exactly correctly sized for that kind of listening. You finish it feeling like you have spent an afternoon in conversation with someone who is genuinely funny and genuinely interested in being kind, which is not a combination as common in celebrity memoirs as it should be.
Ellen DeGeneres published this in 2011, following a period during which her show had become one of the most reliably popular daytime programs on television and her public profile had settled into something that feels in retrospect like an earned cultural institution. The book is not structured as a conventional memoir. It is more in the tradition of the comedic essay collection, with pieces ranging from observations about kale to meditations on yoga to riffs on fashion and celebrity culture and American television.
What We Made of It
The book's greatest strength is the voice. DeGeneres has a comedic sensibility that finds the specific in the everyday, and her written prose captures the rhythm of her stand-up and television work better than celebrity books often manage. One reviewer notes that the humor is authentically Ellen, so much so that you can almost hear her voice pronouncing the words even in print. That observation holds interestingly in reverse when it comes to the audio version: the voice is hers, but the humor is occasionally better appreciated on the page where delivery does not enter the equation.
This brings up the narration question directly. One reviewer is quite specific about the problem: DeGeneres sounds stilted at points, as though reading from a prepared text rather than performing. The reviewer, who loves DeGeneres and purchased the audio specifically for her voice, found that jokes planted in the text lose their punch when delivered with the monotone quality that reading-aloud can impose on even practiced speakers. This is a real issue with celebrity self-narration of humorous prose, and it affects this audiobook more than it affects, for instance, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, where the self-narration adds rather than subtracts.
What Makes Seriously...I'm Kidding Worth Hearing
The short runtime is an asset here. At three hours and seven minutes, the audiobook does not overstay its welcome, and even in its less polished moments it is never a slog. DeGeneres is genuinely funny in enough of the material to justify the investment, and several reviewers mention laughing out loud while listening, which is a real achievement for audio comedy where timing is everything.
The book also has a quality that goes deeper than the comedy, which multiple reviewers identify. One describes finding wisdom while looking for fun. Another notes that DeGeneres connects, reaches out, and makes you feel you know her personally. These qualities are ones the self-narration enhances rather than undermines. When DeGeneres is working in the register of warmth and honesty rather than constructed joke delivery, the audio format is a genuine advantage. The stilted quality that the most critical reviewer identifies is a specific problem with comic timing on certain jokes, not a general failure of the performance.
What Might Not Land
This is not a book for listeners hoping to learn the full arc of DeGeneres's career, her coming-out and the professional consequences it had, or the details of her personal life beyond what she chooses to offer here. It is a deliberately light text. Her relationship, her show, her opinions on various cultural topics, are all touched with a light hand. Anyone hoping for the kind of frank reflection that the best celebrity memoirs provide will find Seriously I'm Kidding operating at a different register of disclosure.
The 2011 publication date is also worth noting. Some cultural references have dated, as they always do in comedic prose that depends on specific cultural moments. The jokes about American Idol, for instance, carry a period quality now that they would not have had at publication.
Who Should Pick Up Seriously...I'm Kidding
Existing fans of DeGeneres who want her voice and her humor in audio form will find this satisfying within its limitations. At three hours, it is a genuinely low-commitment listen that delivers what it promises. Listeners who are not already fans and are hoping to understand what makes DeGeneres a cultural figure of significance should start with her stand-up rather than this book. Those who need their comedy to work perfectly in audio delivery, with the precision timing that comes from practiced performance, should be aware that self-narration of prepared prose is not DeGeneres's strongest mode, even if it remains her most recognizable one.
