I've been a fan of Bob's Burgers and Archer for years, so when I saw that H. Jon Benjamin wrote a memoir, I knew I had to have it. And when I saw that he read it himself, I knew I had to get in on audio.
I was not disappointed.
Failure Is an Option is a phenomenal book to listen to. Benjamin starts from his childhood and goes through his life so far, detailing his failures: how he failed to have a name, how he failed to have a sleepover, how he failed to make a pilot, how he failed at launching a kid's show. He's had a lot of failures. And yet, he's clearly had successes too. He makes the point that while some authors talk about how failures can lead to success, he believes that they're not necessarily correlated. We all fail. We all succeed. But then he goes back to doing one of the things he does best, being funny.
With buckets of honesty and self-awareness, Benjamin shares stories of living in France and studying at university, about trying pot and negotiating with gay escorts (it's not as easy as it sounds, especially when they play Good Gay Escort/Bad Gay Escort). He goes to Canada and baseball games and a Chinese restaurant that his parents "discover." He buys a dirt bike (or two) and offers poor customer service, both in his father's electrical supply store and at a restaurant that serves sizzling hot fajitas. And in with all the stories of his failures are other ideas he's had: failed Presidential pets, failed business ideas, failed pickup lines, and he even includes an excerpt from his fake Holocaust memoir.
His openness is only matched by his ability to take what could be a painful experience and turn it into a laugh-out-loud funny story that makes you like him even more.
Failure Is an Option may be a perfect audiobook. I recommend it strongly (while giggling behind my hand, knowing what you're in for).
Note: this isn't for everyone. There is talk of sex, including threesomes, and drug use. If you know him from Bob's Burgers, you might cringe a little every once in awhile. If you know him from Archer, you won't even bat an eyelash.
Second, far more important note: In this book, Benjamin admits that as a teenager, he liked disco. Not only that, he had the ability to do the DISCO SPLITS! ON ROLLER SKATES!! How has this not been in an episode of Archer yet??? Someone important: please make this happen, ASAP!