Yearbook: Seth Rogen

Product Information

My grandparents were hard to impersonate, so I thought I’d just go with a generic “old Jewish person” voice. It was a safe but ultimately good call. Yearbook is a collection of true stories that I desperately hope are just funny at worst, and life-changingly amazing at best. (I understand that it's likely the former, which is a fancy "book" way of saying "the first one.") The collection ends with a very vivid story about Jewish summer camp, complete with the idea that people might not remember things in the same way.

The night came, and my turn to take the stage was fast approaching. I honestly don’t remember being that nervous, probably because I was twelve f***ing years old and wasn’t even mature enough to be nervous. I’ve definitely gotten more in my head as I’ve gotten older and marvel at how I used to just barrel into these situations without much fear or anxiety. Kids can do that. It’s like those very young Chinese acrobats you see, flinging their little bodies in the air, being thrown around, completely unaware of the stakes. If those kids knew what a torn ACL was, they wouldn’t be letting those motherf***ers toss their little asses around like that. And if I had known the pain and shame that goes along with putting yourself out there creatively and being rejected, I probably wouldn’t have been so excited. But I didn’t, so I was. Funny books, particularly those written by comedians, are often hit-or-miss for me, so I’m glad to say this was mostly a hit. It’s silly but fun, and I certainly can use more of that in my life lately. And I'd bet this would be a fun one to listen to! Yearbook is a collection of true stories that I desperately hope are just funny at worst, and life-changingly amazing at best. (I understand that it’s likely the former, which is a fancy “book” way of saying “the first one.”) The stories didn't really feel like Seth Rogen to me, other than all the drugs. There's a good chance that's on me. Seth Rogen usually seems to play variations on the same character, so I've always assumed he was basically playing himself, but maybe there's a bigger difference between movie Seth and real-life Seth than I realized.

Customer reviews

I asked lots of people to help me read the book including my mom and wife, and together we talk about grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like. I also talk about some of my adventures in Los Angeles and surely say things about other famous people that will create a wildly awkward conversation for me at a party one day. While the physical book has great photos, I strongly recommend this on audiobook, which is narrated by Seth, and many of the scenes are voice acted by the people who were there. For example, Seth's actual dad voices himself on the book. Jason Segel also voices himself. And SNL's Jay Pharaoh does a lot of heavy lifting as an impressionist (I assume Jay did the amazing Kanye impression). I’ve always been a big Seth Rogen fan – ever since discovering Freaks And Geeks at the video store (remember them?) in the early 00s.

This is one of those collections of personal essays that are personal but impersonal. I respect it! Boundaries are good but there are places where I would have appreciated more personal insight or getting to know about the man behind the humor. What I’m saying is that there isn’t an essay about pottery and I would have loved to read about how he got into throwing clay. As an aside, I would also love to read an essay or book from him on screenwriting and storytelling.I hope you enjoy the book should you buy it, and if you don’t enjoy it, I’m sorry. If you ever see me on the street and explain the situation, I’ll do my best to make it up to you. I wrote three jokes about Bubby and Zaidy that followed the basic structure we were taught: Say the premise or the thing you don’t like; say why you don’t like that thing by making a humorous observation; then do an “act out,” an impression of the target of the joke, bringing it all together. It speaks to Rogen’s storytelling prowess and eventful adolescence that by the time he gets to his Hollywood experience, one almost forgets that this is, in fact, a celebrity story. At the risk of alienating many a megastar, Rogen promptly gets blunt. A loopy conversation with George Lucas, when the Star Wars mastermind seemed to be sincerely preparing for the apocalypse in 2012, is eye opening. The saga of The Green Hornet’s troubled pre-production features a disastrous dinner with Nicolas Cage, who was up for the villain role but purportedly pitched the character as a white Bahamian, then years later asked if James Franco snatched the idea for Spring Breakers. Dealings with Tom Cruise, Kanye West and Steve Wozniak feel similarly on the nose – so much so that they almost play like too-good-to-be-true satire.