Unqualified

by Anna Faris, Chris Pratt Narrated by Fred Sanders, Anna Faris

Overview

A hilarious, honest memoir-combined with just the right amount of relationship advice-from the popular actress and host of the hit podcast Anna Faris is Unqualified.

Anna Faris has advice for you. And it's great advice, because she's been through it all, and she wants to tell you what she's learned.*

After surviving an awkward childhood (when she bribed the fastest boy in the third grade with ice cream), navigating dating and marriage in Hollywood, and building a podcast around romantic advice, Anna has plenty of lessons to share: Advocate for yourself. Know that there are wonderful people out there and that a great relationship is possible. And, finally, don't date magicians.

Her comic memoir, Unqualified, shares Anna's candid, sympathetic, and entertaining stories of love lost and won. Part memoir-including stories about being “the short girl” in elementary school, finding and keeping female friends, and dealing with the pressures of the entertainment industry and parenthood-part humorous, unflinching advice from her hit podcast, Anna Faris Is Unqualified, the book will reveal Anna's unique take on how to master the bizarre, chaotic, and ultimately rewarding world of love.

Hilarious, honest, and useful, Unqualified is the book Anna's fans have been waiting for.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly - Audio

01/22/2018
Faris—actress, producer, and host of the Anna Faris Is Unqualified podcast—narrates this lighthearted mix of autobiography and ruminations on love and relationships. As narrator, Farris projects the down-to-earth persona that fans of her character on the sitcom Mom would expect, with whimsy mixed with grit. The podcast elements take on a conversational tone, with audience shout-outs and asides, while the memoir portions seem more like a traditional author-read audiobook production. The anecdotes from her marriage to actor Chris Pratt (which ended just before the book’s publication) shift confusingly between past and present tense in the audiobook. But this ties into a recurring theme of Faris’s narrative: that complete closure in matters of the heart doesn’t really exist. The audiobook will likely be of greatest interest to fans of Faris’s podcast, rather than finding a broader audience. A Dutton hardcover. (Oct.)

From the Publisher

Praise for Unqualified

“Goofily self-deprecating, casually profane and occasionally raw, earnest and blunt, like Ms. Faris herself.”—The New York Times

“Unqualified is observant, sharp, and startlingly revealing, not only about Faris’s romantic history, but of the broader discrepancies between modern male and female Hollywood stardom writ large.”—The Ringer

“In her many quirky, comedic roles, Anna Faris has proven she isn't afraid to go there on screen (The House Bunny, anyone?). And in her new book, Unqualified, she proves she's just as daring and hilarious on paper.”—Health.com 

“Faris's expectedly hilarious memoir features stories about her childhood (like what it was like being the token short girl in elementary school) and legitimate advice about getting over breakups.”—InStyle.com

“[Faris] has an engaging voice and is capable of expressing a distinct point of view. She is most affecting in her occasionally bittersweet reflections, as she recounts stories about working in the industry, her anxieties and frustrations about auditioning, and the personal challenges of dealing with aging in Hollywood.”—Kirkus Reviews

Library Journal

05/15/2017
Star of the CBS hit comedy Mom and a veteran of numerous films, Faris is probably best known for "Anna Faris Is Unqualified," a podcast launched in 2015 that averages two million downloads a month. Here's another funny celebrity memoir with advice, focusing on the grand game of finding and keeping love. With a five-city tour.

Kirkus Reviews

2017-08-07
The comedic actress and podcaster reflects on her career journey and offers advice on relationships.In the effusive foreword to his wife's book, actor Chris Pratt notes that a similarity they share is their reliance on people's tendency to underestimate them—a possible hint for readers to anticipate something more than the routine narrative that follows. Faris, best known for her roles in the Scary Movie franchise and the TV sitcom Mom, does little to raise the bar of what can best be described as equal parts Hollywood coming-of-age story and celebrity-as-relationship-adviser brand-building exercise. The author's background story is fairly uneventful. She grew up in a Seattle suburb in a loving, supportive family. In high school and college, she appeared in a few local stage productions, which sparked a continued interest in acting, leading to auditions and minor film and TV work. After falling in love with a co-star from an early film, Ben Indra, she followed him to Hollywood, where she landed a few breakout film roles. Her eventual marriage to Indra didn't work out, but shortly thereafter, she met Pratt, and their relationship quickly blossomed and continues to endure. As a writer, Faris has her moments. She has an engaging voice and is capable of expressing a distinct point of view. She is most affecting in her occasionally bittersweet reflections, as she recounts stories about working in the industry, her anxieties and frustrations about auditioning, and the personal challenges of dealing with aging in Hollywood (she recently turned 40). Unfortunately, there are far too many self-conscious references to the fact that she's writing her first book. Her story is also loaded with unnecessary filler—e.g., chapters revolving around relationship themes and advice from her popular podcast Unqualified and random lists ("Sex on the Beach and Thirteen Other Things that Sound Better Than They Are") that are presumably intended to engage her podcast audience. A mildly compelling celebrity memoir primarily for fans of the author's podcast.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940172195662
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	10/24/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

The Fastest Boy in the Third Grade
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Unqualified"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Anna Faris.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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