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3.47 AVERAGE
3.47 AVERAGE
I enjoyed this book. I think the podcast portions felt patchy, but an overall good read
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
medium-paced
Not what I was expecting. It also felt a little strange to have read it now, as she talks a lot about her relationship with Chris Pratt that is now over.
I've always loved her. She's so relatable and funny, never takes herself too seriously, and always wants to learn. In this book, she weaves personal stories with relationship advice. I wish it was a straight memoir about her life and career, but I appreciate her complete honesty about her family, friends, and men in her life. It's a quick, breezy read.
This book has been my slow-read, on my iPhone (that's a book on my phone's Kindle app that I read whenever I need to kill time, or can't listen to my audiobook. I only do this with books that are episodic or with anthologies) over the past two weeks.
I've sometimes enjoyed Anna Faris' odd, almost nerdy but still broad form of comedy. I've listened to her podcast once in a while. But I'd have to be honest to say that I don't know what to make of this book. It's three parts love letter to her ex-husband Chris Pratt, two parts all about relationships (not just with her men but with her friends, and even with her son) and one part TMI. (I really don't need to know how long it took her to be comfortable with masturbating or how long it's been since she did while her husband was away for four months...) Faris also talks about acting and the business in some forthright passages. The thing that is confounding about this book is precisely the "three parts." Her love for Chris is written all over this book and yet as a reader, sadly, you question some of the veracity of what she relates because of the breakup and because of their joint statement about how hard they worked to make it work and it didn't, etc. None of that comes across in this book. While I don't need to read anything about the reasons why they broke up, given that they did (which is very sad, mind you) I don't know how much of what she's written about him or about the two of them (which is a lot, by the way) is true or was just sugar coating, Hollywood style. Would I have questioned any of it if they were still together? If she waited five years after they divorced and published it as a memoir of her early life and marriage, would it have been the same book? Who knows. It's an odd feeling to get to the end of a memoir and be wondering how much of this is true. Although, honestly, I guess you can wonder that about almost anyone's recounting of their version of their life. Ultimately, this book made me sad for both Faris and Pratt.
Beyond the veracity issue, I felt the book could have been more tightly edited. I felt it would have served her better as an author to have pinned things down to a rough timeline. After the first chapter things just jump around in an almost ADHD way. It may be representative of Faris' thought processes or it may be because she wrote the book over a period of time in an almost stream of consciousness fashion and her editor didn't want to overhaul it.
All in all, an odd read.
I've sometimes enjoyed Anna Faris' odd, almost nerdy but still broad form of comedy. I've listened to her podcast once in a while. But I'd have to be honest to say that I don't know what to make of this book. It's three parts love letter to her ex-husband Chris Pratt, two parts all about relationships (not just with her men but with her friends, and even with her son) and one part TMI. (I really don't need to know how long it took her to be comfortable with masturbating or how long it's been since she did while her husband was away for four months...) Faris also talks about acting and the business in some forthright passages. The thing that is confounding about this book is precisely the "three parts." Her love for Chris is written all over this book and yet as a reader, sadly, you question some of the veracity of what she relates because of the breakup and because of their joint statement about how hard they worked to make it work and it didn't, etc. None of that comes across in this book. While I don't need to read anything about the reasons why they broke up, given that they did (which is very sad, mind you) I don't know how much of what she's written about him or about the two of them (which is a lot, by the way) is true or was just sugar coating, Hollywood style. Would I have questioned any of it if they were still together? If she waited five years after they divorced and published it as a memoir of her early life and marriage, would it have been the same book? Who knows. It's an odd feeling to get to the end of a memoir and be wondering how much of this is true. Although, honestly, I guess you can wonder that about almost anyone's recounting of their version of their life. Ultimately, this book made me sad for both Faris and Pratt.
Beyond the veracity issue, I felt the book could have been more tightly edited. I felt it would have served her better as an author to have pinned things down to a rough timeline. After the first chapter things just jump around in an almost ADHD way. It may be representative of Faris' thought processes or it may be because she wrote the book over a period of time in an almost stream of consciousness fashion and her editor didn't want to overhaul it.
All in all, an odd read.
funny
inspiring
fast-paced
Decent book that met my expectations. Not Earth shattering, but I didn't expect it to be.
Loved this book! I didn't know much about Anna Faris before the book but I remember her from The House Bunny. Loved getting to know her and I much like her, like to give unqualified sometimes unrequested advice.
Anna Faris is a funny and genuine person, and this comes out strongly in this book. She tells a lot of great and super personal stories about Chris, her son, her family and the greatest movie of all time, JUST FRIENDS :) The only complaint I really had was that it was a little scatterbrained, the way chapters were organized. But this didn't really surprise me because her podcast is very similar.
