I’m mightily impressed by this book, as I have been with close to everything Amy Schumer has done. From her stand-up, to her sketch show Inside Amy Schumer, to the film Trainwreck. Now, the book – part memoir, part essay collection – The Girl with the Lower Back Tattoo, which adds another notch to her belt.

Amy Schumer is superbly funny, and in this book she reveals aspects of her life, her family, her experience which places it not only as a solid entry into the collection of great books by comedians, it also serves as a solid piece of feminist writing as she exposes all the double standards and shitty experiences she’s been made to fight though on her journey to being a huge star.

The book is a mixed bag of content, from the brutally honest reflections on her life and her struggles with both her parents – each of whom has their own, um, ‘stuff’, to her as a woman in her 30s reflecting on the diary entries of her 13 year old self; to the matter-of-fact way she’s had to deal with all the bullshit commensurate with being a female comedian on a press junket. Mad props to the idiot from Melbourne commercial radio (Matt Tilley, keeping it super classy) who gets a mention for being a fuckwit.

For the record, Inside Amy Schumer is ground-breaking, note-perfect sketch comedy as cultural barometer. Her episode, ‘12 Angry Men Inside Amy Schumer’ is probably the most profoundly insightful exploration of sexist double standards you’re ever likely to see – aside from it being a screamingly funny, brilliantly written piece of work, it’s also probably up there among the more important, impactful pieces of television ever produced. It taps into the very heart of the zeitgeist and delivers a brilliant take down of sexism, chauvinism, double standards and the insanity that is a woman’s worth as an individual being based solely on her fuckability. Seek out that show, if nothing else, to be blown away.

The book, however, is a fast, captivating, often hilarious read. I’d recommend it to anyone.