Neil Patrick Harris: Choose Your Own Autobiography

This memoir follows Neil Patrick Harris from his childhood in New Mexico to his career as a child star on Doogie Howser, M.D., his success on Broadway, and his long-running role on How I Met Your Mother. Written in the second-person style of a classic choose-your-own-adventure novel, the book forces the reader to make decisions that dictate Harris’s life path. One selection leads to professional success and a happy family with David Burtka, while another results in a gruesome fictional death or a disastrous career turn. Interspersed among these branching paths are magic tricks, cocktail recipes, and photographs from his personal archives.

Fans of comedic memoirs and readers interested in the mechanics of show business read this for a playful take on the standard celebrity biography. The nonlinear format requires active participation, turning the act of reading into a game. Readers walk away with a detailed timeline of Harris’s professional milestones and personal life, alongside a sense of how timing and specific choices shaped his trajectory in the entertainment industry. It functions as both a factual history of a performer and a satirical exercise in narrative structure.

Practical, outward-looking, growth-minded and clear-cut; an easy read.

Best for readers like The Practical Optimizer. Which reader are you?