Start Without Me

January 3, 2022
Writer and producer Janetti (Do You Mind If I Cancel?) briskly trots through the most memorable moments of his life in this hilarious outing. In vignettes packed with zingers (“The Catholics are the RuPaul’s Drag Race of religions. We put on a show, honey”), he reveals how his refusal to live on any terms but his own took root early when, instead of going out to play as a kid in the 1970s, he opted to watch The Carol Burnett Show in his basement. Sports weren’t his calling, either (their rules were “as indecipherable to me as ancient Greek”), though track wasn’t bad—“All gay people can run, so no problem there.” While his strength lies firmly in his acerbic humor, Janetti has a softer side, too, as seen when he writes of finding a home in theater in college and waxes poetic about Judy Garland, proclaiming The Wizard of Oz to be the “gayest” film of all time: “At only sixteen years old already knows real pain. The kind of pain that most gay children can also identify with.” His views on raising a child today are perfectly calibrated, too: “No, thanks, I’m not equipped to deal with whatever the fuck is coming... after TikTok.” Pithy and profane, this entertains from start to finish.

February 1, 2022
A maestro of the mundane strains to lend substance to his humor. In his second book, Janetti, a TV writer, producer, and actor, delivers a narrative full of stratospherically over-the-top pronouncements and lurid asides--and that's just about his childhood in Queens. In his account of growing up gay, the author visits many familiar touchstones, occasionally uncorking a tart observation, though few are terribly original. Janetti holds forth on his distaste for the outdoors, tribulations in high school gym class, the fallacy of college preparing one for life, musical theater, and his tendency toward misanthropy: "I'm constantly maneuvering myself through life to be the farthest away as possible from people," he writes, not quite tongue-in-cheek. "If I can hear your voice you're too close." It may be shtick, but the author can also be venomous at times, and his wit seems labored. "Maybe I met enough people over the years to realize that they just start repeating themselves after a while," he writes. "So you're never really meeting someone new. Just another version of someone else you know. 'I already have one of you, ' I often find myself thinking while talking to a person I've just met." The pieces in this collection allow the author to ramble on incessantly, usually about trivial matters. While it's true that great comedy often springs from such preoccupations, the majority of Janetti's jokes fall flat. His self-deprecating recollections cannot hide the fact that much of his comedy is dismissive or whiny. While there is solid advice for 20-somethings entering the world of independence--and a few touching moments--sarcasm is the principal arrow in his quiver, and it gets tiresome. Being judgmental can be wickedly amusing in a Woody Allen on-a-park-bench-pillorying-people sort of way. But it's a double-edged sword. Janetti's "vulnerability," when revealed, is simultaneously so snarky that it's hard to empathize with him. Superficial and arch to a fault.

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March 1, 2022

In his latest essay collection (following Do You Mind If I Cancel?), Janetti (a producer of TV, including Family Guy and Will & Grace) recalls growing up in New York City with his mother, father, and sister. A consistent theme of Janetti's essays is the experience of not fitting in (at home; at school); he describes struggling to make friends as a child and says it was easier for him to relate to adults than to kids his own age. Some of Janetti's are funnier than others, and some might be too unrelatable to readers. The memoir's highlight is Janetti's account of his mother's and his aunt's conversations about his grandmother, who died shortly before the author was born; here Janetti reveals a softer side of himself, explores his Italian roots, and reflects on his grandmother's life. As in his previous book, here Janetti balances humor and seriousness in writing about the moments in life that have defined him. VERDICT While the cynical humor will not be for everyone, Janetti's memoir will be a solid choice for those who liked Do You Mind If I Cancel? or who follow his social media.--Michelle Lettus

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