Tina Fey’s collection of personal essays, “Bossypants,” is a witty and heartfelt foray into the world of a comedic superstar.

Fey has self-deprication down to an artform in her writing. Her cracks against herself never get old or whiny, but increasingly more relatable as we follow her from a high school theatre geek to the famous Fey we know today.

She admits her bossypants attitude from the beginning of the book, addressing those people who always ask her “is it hard for you, being the boss?”

Her answer no, it’s not if you do what Fey suggests: hiring talented people and then letting them do their thing.

This is certainly a book you can judge by its cover. The jacket is an airbrushed picture of her face attached to the body and arms of a big, burly, hairy man — perhaps alluding to her Greek heritage (she notes that, as a 10-year-old, her “dark shin fur was hard to ignore in shorts weather”) or her notoriously ball-busting attitude. How can you pick up a book with the famous mug of a seemingly she-man and not think it’s going to be funny?

Whether you’re a fan of Fey from her past work on “Saturday Night Live,” her current antics on “30 Rock” or her notoriously hilarious six-week “SNL” stint playing Sarah Palin, “Bossypants” offers a side of her personality still unexplored.

Reading about her awkward years at the University of Virginia will make even the most socially-inept college student breathe a bit easier about a lackluster love life.

“What 19-year-old Virginia boy doesn’t want a wide-hipped, sarcastic Greek girl with short hair that’s permed on top?” she asks.

Well, apparently, none of them. Her uncanny ability to end up dating gay guys (whether they know they are) also is hysterical.

“So you can see why,” she says, “when I occasionally had a little success with a heterosexual white male, I dug in and hung on for dear life.”

One of the book’s most memorable chapters is “Amazing, Gorgeous, Not Like That,” in which Fey describes the unearthly experience of being in a magazine photo shoot and why it is “THE FUNNEST.”

She suggests setting the bar low in this situation. “Show up looking like an uncooked chicken leg, and they can’t help but be pleased with the transformation once they get all their makeup on you,” she writes.

We get to see the domestic side of Fey as well in the book, from her just-as-awful-as-a-regular-person’s honeymoon cruise to her struggles as a working mother considering having a second child. And what does turning 40 mean to a successful comedian, writer, actress and producer? “I need to take my pants off as soon as I get home,” she reveals. “I didn’t use to have to do that. But now I do.”

The only part missing from this otherwise flawless collection is her experience writing the screenplay for 2004’s “Mean Girls.” She merely mentions it in passing, exclaiming that “hopefully it’s playing on TBS right now (which, undoubtedly, it is)!”

Most of the time, seeing a celebrity memoir on a bookshelf surprises you more in the fact that said celebrity is actually literate. But in Fey’s case, it makes you wonder why this is only her first book — it certainly shouldn’t be her last.

— Emily Hopkins, University College freshman