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A review by havebookswilltravel
Unqualified by Chris Pratt, Anna Faris
3.0
My feelings on this book are so mixed. Many times when I listen to memoirs/essays by celebs I admire, I come away feeling like I want to be friends with that person (see: Sara Bareilles, Anna Kendrick). Not so with Anna Faris. Anna Faris seems like a perfectly lovely, charming person with whom I have almost nothing in common and therefore don’t find relatable. That’s no fault of hers or mine, but it does affect my feelings when listening to her book. Her outlook on a lot of things is pretty different from mine so I wasn’t able to really connect to much of what she was saying.
First, the positives: The chapter about her son, Jack, tugged at my heartstrings. I also liked what she had to say about not trying to live up to other people’s expectations of you or their timeline for you. She talked about people always asking when she was going to have another kid and I so relate to that. When I was married, everyone wanted to know when we were having kids. Now that I’m in a new relationship, everyone wants to know when we are moving in together or getting married. People mean well; they just want to share in excitement and happiness with you, but i wish everyone would just butt out. There are reasons I didn’t have kids with my ex-husband, and there are reasons I’m not moving in with my boyfriend, and none of those are anyone else’s business.
One of the main issues I have with this book is that it seems like a lot of it was filler because she didn’t have enough material to make a full-length book. So she padded it with some transcripts from her podcast (did you know she has a podcast?) and ask-the-audience lists. Much of what we get are the opinions and advice of her podcast listeners and Facebook followers, and not really her.
Another thing that made the timing of the publication of this book weird is her split with Chris Pratt. So much of the book gushes about their relationship and how romantic and amazing and wonderful he is, but the couple announced their split right before publication. Awkward? It makes one wonder what happened to break them up. Which sounds really creepy to say, as I firmly believe it is no one’s business what happens in a relationship other than the people in that relationship. But when my own marriage ended, it was a long time coming. You know how FB has those “on this day” things where you can see the things you posted in previous years? There’s nothing positive about my husband or marriage for a while before we finally split up. If you were adept at reading between the lines you wouldn’t be surprised at all. But we stayed together until we had exhausted every avenue and tried everything to save our marriage. We stayed together until it was clear that the relationship was dead beyond hope of any resuscitation. I know it’s not my business and I don’t know the intimate details but it just seems like their breakup came out of nowhere. I’m sure it’s not that simple, of course. They have a child together and I’m sure they didn’t make their decision lightly. But getting a glimpse into how happy they seemed to be just makes the split seem abrupt. And it’s odd to ask for privacy during a breakup when you’ve just written a book about your relationship.
I also think readers who’ve seen more of Faris’ work will enjoy it more than I did. I’ve never seen any of the Scary Movies, and I don’t watch her sitcom. I’ve seen her in a couple things and thought she was fine, but haven’t really followed her career. I probably wouldn’t have read this had it not been recommended by a friend, and I don’t think I would have been missing very much.
First, the positives: The chapter about her son, Jack, tugged at my heartstrings. I also liked what she had to say about not trying to live up to other people’s expectations of you or their timeline for you. She talked about people always asking when she was going to have another kid and I so relate to that. When I was married, everyone wanted to know when we were having kids. Now that I’m in a new relationship, everyone wants to know when we are moving in together or getting married. People mean well; they just want to share in excitement and happiness with you, but i wish everyone would just butt out. There are reasons I didn’t have kids with my ex-husband, and there are reasons I’m not moving in with my boyfriend, and none of those are anyone else’s business.
One of the main issues I have with this book is that it seems like a lot of it was filler because she didn’t have enough material to make a full-length book. So she padded it with some transcripts from her podcast (did you know she has a podcast?) and ask-the-audience lists. Much of what we get are the opinions and advice of her podcast listeners and Facebook followers, and not really her.
Another thing that made the timing of the publication of this book weird is her split with Chris Pratt. So much of the book gushes about their relationship and how romantic and amazing and wonderful he is, but the couple announced their split right before publication. Awkward? It makes one wonder what happened to break them up. Which sounds really creepy to say, as I firmly believe it is no one’s business what happens in a relationship other than the people in that relationship. But when my own marriage ended, it was a long time coming. You know how FB has those “on this day” things where you can see the things you posted in previous years? There’s nothing positive about my husband or marriage for a while before we finally split up. If you were adept at reading between the lines you wouldn’t be surprised at all. But we stayed together until we had exhausted every avenue and tried everything to save our marriage. We stayed together until it was clear that the relationship was dead beyond hope of any resuscitation. I know it’s not my business and I don’t know the intimate details but it just seems like their breakup came out of nowhere. I’m sure it’s not that simple, of course. They have a child together and I’m sure they didn’t make their decision lightly. But getting a glimpse into how happy they seemed to be just makes the split seem abrupt. And it’s odd to ask for privacy during a breakup when you’ve just written a book about your relationship.
I also think readers who’ve seen more of Faris’ work will enjoy it more than I did. I’ve never seen any of the Scary Movies, and I don’t watch her sitcom. I’ve seen her in a couple things and thought she was fine, but haven’t really followed her career. I probably wouldn’t have read this had it not been recommended by a friend, and I don’t think I would have been missing very much.