I knew of Jim Gaffigan from his stand up specials on Comedy Central, so when I was looking for a short audiobook to fill in a prompt from the Pop Sugar challenge, I went with a known name. Gaffigan reads his own book, and his delivery is just as good here as it is in his stand up. I don't think I would have liked this book as much if I had read it. It kept my attention even though I was playing video games (a time I reserve for listening to podcasts).
Gaffigan has such great observations about every day life in his stand up; with this book, he talks of those observations on parenting - and he has plenty of experience as a father of five kids under the age of 10 (at the time of the writing/publishing the book). He does do funny voices (just like in his stand up), although those voices help the listener define the jokes. He never pokes fun at his kids to get a laugh; a lot of the material here is Jim making fun of himself as a father. The part where he talks of birthday parties really stuck with me as a parent; the part where he talks about taking kids to Mass stuck with me as a kid who grew up Catholic.
For the first 45 minutes, I listened to this at the normal speed; the rest of the book I listened at 1.25 speed and it worked better for me. This was my first audiobook ever and it was a delightful experience thanks to Jim Gaffigan. I am definitely planning on reading Gaffigan's other book via audiobook sometime this year.
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