Unqualified

by 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101986431
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	10/02/2018
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	762,287
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Anna Faris is an actress, producer, and top-rated podcaster. Her podcast, Anna Faris Is Unqualified, averages 4 million downloads a month. Faris currently stars on the CBS hit comedy Mom and has had memorable roles on Entourage and Friends. She most recently starred in MGM/Pantelion Films' remake of Overboard alongside Eugenio Derbez. Faris produced and starred in The House Bunny and What's Your Number and her additional films include the Scary Movie franchise, Lost in Translation, The Dictator, Observe and Report, Brokeback Mountain, Just Friends, Smiley Face, Keanu, and the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs franchise.  A native of Washington State, she lives in Los Angeles with her family.

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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Table of Contents

Forward Chris Pratt 1

Introduction: I Rote a Book! 7

The Fastest Boy in the Third Grade 17

List to Live By: The Professions of Men You Should Not Date (I Broke My Own Rules) 25

Ich Liebe Dich 30

Unqualified Advice: Squad Goals? 38

Losing My Virginity, and Other Horrible Sexual Escapades 48

Listener Advice: I Was the Short Girl. What Were You? 59

Proud and Angry 69

Turning the Tables: Not-So-Rapid Fire 74

Waiting … 81

Unqualified Advice: Should You More for the Guy? 84

The Wedding Hoopla 88

Unqualified Advice: Not Enough Soul 98

Meet My Parents 104

Playing House 117

Listener Advice: How to Get Over a Breakup 128

Take Me Home Tonight. Literally. 135

Turning the Tables: Deal Breakers 145

Just Friends: A Conversation Between a Man and a Woman Who've Been Pals for Fifteen Years and Haven't Slept Together 154

Scoliosis Check 164

List to Live By: Sex on the Beach and Thirteen Other Things That Sound Better Than They Are 174

Listener List: Things That Sound Better Than They Are, Part 2 180

What's Your Number? (And Why Do We Reveal It?) 182

Comedy, Fame, and the Gross Words 187

Unqualified Advice: The Bush Is Back 199

Can I Marry You? 203

Unqualified Advice: Unicorns Aren't Found, They're Made 206

Chatroulette 214

How to Deal with Jealousy 220

Turning the Tables: How Would You Proceed? 225

Jack Pratt 230

Unqualified Advice: Protect Your Heart 246

Listener Advice: More Love Mantras 251

Forty 259

Unqualified Advice: How to Tune Out the Noise 270

Friday, January 6, 2017 274

She Said, He Said: What It's Like to Be a Couple in Hollywood 280

Unqualified Advice: I Don't Know What I'm Talking About, but Here's Some Other Free (Or Only the Cost of This Book) Unqualified Advice 288

This Is the Chapter That Will Make You Vomit 295

Don't Call It Closure 300

Acknowledgments 303

Editorial Reviews

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

From the Publisher

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.

Library Journal

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.

Kirkus Reviews