This will only hurt a little

This will only hurt a little

Busy Philipps, 1979-

Book - 2018

There's no stopping Busy Philipps. From the time she was two and "aced out in her nudes" to explore the neighborhood (as her mom famously described her toddler jailbreak), Busy has always been headstrong, defiant, and determined not to miss out on all the fun. These qualities led her to leave Scottsdale, Arizona, at the age of nineteen to pursue her passion for acting in Hollywood. But much like her painful and painfully funny teenage years, chasing her dreams wasn't always easy and sometimes hurt more than a little. In this stunningly candid memoir, Busy opens up about chafing against a sexist system rife with on-set bullying and body shaming, being there when friends face shattering loss, enduring devastating personal ...and professional betrayals from those she loved best, and struggling with postpartum anxiety and the challenges of motherhood. But Busy also brings to the page her sly sense of humor and the unshakeable sense that disappointment shouldn't stand in her way--even when she's knocked down both figuratively and literally (from a knee injury at her seventh-grade dance to a violent encounter on the set of Freaks and Geeks). The rough patches in her life are tempered by times of hilarity and joy: leveraging a flawless impression of Cher from Clueless into her first paid acting gig, helping reinvent a genre with cult classic Freaks and Geeks, becoming fast friends with Dawson's Creek castmate Michelle Williams, staging her own surprise wedding, conquering natural childbirth with the help of a Mad Men-themed hallucination, and more. Busy is the rare entertainer whose impressive arsenal of talents as an actress is equally matched by her storytelling ability, sense of humor, and sharp observations about life, love, and motherhood. Her conversational writing reminds us what we love about her on screens large and small. From film to television to Instagram and now to the page, Busy delightfully showcases her wry humor and her willingness to bare it all.

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Subjects
Philipps, Busy, > 1979-
Actors > United States > Biography.
Autobiographies.
Genres
Autobiographies
Published
New York : Touchstone 2018.
Language
English
Main Author
Busy Philipps, 1979- (author)
Edition
First Touchstone hardcover edition
Physical Description
310 pages ; 22 cm
ISBN
9781501184710
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Philipps, a character actress and onetime Dawson's Creek star, is among the current crop of writers who've landed a book deal on the back of a popular social-media feed in her case, an Instagram account with more than a million followers. Like her feed, Philipps' book is filled with celebrity, children, and candid self-disclosure. In prose marked by all-caps, exclamation points, and the names of those who've wronged her, she takes readers through her life, starting with a bumpy Arizona adolescence, a tumultuous time distinguished by a lousy relationship with her parents, intoxicants, date rape, and far less grievous betrayals. One especially poignant chapter recalls her first romance, a story of infatuation, abortion, and Pope John Paul II. Philipps excavates the early days of her career and relationship with Tom Hanks' son, then moves on to the vagaries of life as a mid-career actress: Hollywood parties, misogyny, snubs, backstabbing, real estate, and frozen yogurt. Last comes marriage and children and, with them, a midlife resolution: THIS IS WHO I AM NOW. --Eugenia Williamson Copyright 2018 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Library Journal Review

Comedic actress (Freaks and Geeks; Cougar Town), Instagram star, and now late-night talk show host (Busy Tonight) Philipps recounts her formative years, countless failed auditions, and her hit-and-miss career in this candid memoir. Philipps admits that when she was growing up in Scottsdale, AZ, her chief goal was to get attention. She knew early on that the Hollywood route would be her path to success. She reflects on her often painful teenage years (date rape, abortion, peer pressure) with emotion, but her stories also contain doses of humor (her imitations of her mother are very funny). In Hollywood, she has faced sexism and body-shaming, and she is not afraid to name names (James Franco and Steven Levitan are chief among them). Philipps also discusses her marriage to screenwriter Marc Silverstein, her pregnancies, and children with brash candor. VERDICT Fans will find much to delight them here. ["Philipps paints a picture of what it's like to be a woman in the world of acting...juggling parenthood and career in a celebrity memoir that stands apart in a crowded field": LJ Xpress Reviews 9/28/18 review of the Touchstone hc.]-Phillip Oliver, formerly with Univ. of North Alabama, Florence © Copyright 2019. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

A highly candid, tell-all memoir from the cult-favorite actress.In a book that often reads like a Real World confessional or an open diary, the Cougar Town star bares all in recounting her rise to fame: from childhood passion to become an actress to fraught teen years getting in with the wrong crowd and terminating a pregnancy to facing sexism in Hollywood to dating Colin Hanks to landing a role on Dawson's Creek to countless failed auditions to falling in love with and then considering divorcing her husband. While the honesty is refreshing, much like her Instagram persona, the narrative occasionally comes across as narcissistic. Philipps is open about her overwhelming need to be liked and included, a sentiment that provides the throughline of the book. For example, she chronicles the time she dislocated her knee at a middle school dance because she wanted to see why boys where moshing to "Smells Like Teen Spirit." "That is what I get for wanting to know what was going on," she writes, "for wanting to be a part of things, for wanting more.It's too bad I didn't realize the life lesson I was being handed. Because maybe, possibly, it would have saved me from even more pain in the years to come." At the same time, Philipps is happy to dole out some literary retribution, calling out some of those who have wronged here.g., she calls Freaks Geeks co-star James Franco "a fucking bully" and Modern Family director Steven Levitan "a fucking asshole" who enjoys "the joy of being an oblivious super successful white man" in showbiz. But while the author is quick to point the finger, she's also her own harshest critic. In explaining her Instagram use, she writes, "the reason I started the storieswas because I was lonely."Ultimately, the book is a page-turner, albeit one in which the need for the readers' approval is felt on nearly every page. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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