Review by Booklist Review
Novelist Leary (The Foundling, 2022) pulls together a collection of sardonic, touching essays, many of which have been published previously, about her life and marriage. A self-avowed "people pleaser," Leary notes that "On the Internet, I'm friendly, thoughtful, and altruistic," but "in real life, I'm a borderline hermit who is slovenly, pessimistic, and wrinkled." Many of the best of the essays, including the wrenching and darkly comic "Love Means Nothing (in Tennis)" deal with the complications, strains, and ultimate joys of her marriage to actor Denis Leary, which provides both material success and the stress of public exposure. Other essays cover her struggles with alcoholism, her love for the many dogs who have appeared in her home, travel misadventures, and the pleasure of learning to play the banjo in midlife. Without full self-exposure, Leary provides tantalizing glimpses of a life with more than its share of ups and downs. Taken together, the essays form a composite portrait of a likeable, self-aware, and complicated human being and writer.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
This winning essay collection from novelist Leary (The Foundling) riffs on the trifles and tribulations of her life. The title essay describes her efforts to stop being a people pleaser, offering a comical account of how she worked up the gumption to confront a woman whose off-leash dogs habitually agitated Leary's. Self-deprecating humor is a near constant throughout, as in "Coming of Age," where Leary recounts how she temporarily stopped dyeing her gray hair when she was in her early 50s: "All the adoring attention I received during my years as a silver fox was from men who were between eighty and a hundred years old." Other pieces reflect on Leary's marriage to actor Denis Leary, touching on red carpet mishaps ("We... learned the hard way that it's best for the famous person or people to step out of a vehicle first") and how playing tennis together helped save their relationship. A few of the selections strike a more somber tone, as when Leary discusses her alcoholism and discovering as an adult her uncle and grandmother's troubled pasts, but lighthearted commentary predominates (recalling her first night as an empty nester: "I uttered the words my husband had waited twenty years for me to say: 'Let's watch TV while we eat' "). The humor lands and the lithe prose elevates Leary's musings on life's mundanities. This is a gem. Agent: Margaret Riley King, WME. (June)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The debut essay collection from the veteran novelist. Leary, the author of The Foundling and Outtakes From a Marriage, begins with a relatable anecdote about her experience with a neighbor who would let her dog roam on the author's property. The neighbor ignored Leary's concerns regarding her volatile dog, until she had enough and stopped being nice: "At that moment I was Walter White from Breaking Bad; I was Sir from To Sir, with Love; I was young Jane Eyre. Why do we love those characters so much? Because they tried being nice. Then they stopped." The author's candid essays invite readers to laugh and cry along with her as she attempts to relieve herself of her people-pleasing duties. She fluidly guides us through her thought processes, while finding humor and displaying a refreshing vulnerability. She is unafraid to relate hard lessons she has learned over the years. There were times when she battled intrusive thoughts and times when she was overwhelmed by the fame of her actor husband, Denis. "My desperation to please others became even more of an issue when my husband Denis became famous," she writes. Each chapter offers a little peek into her world: hilarious red carpet moments, struggles with alcohol, sweet cuddles with her dogs. "I'd still like to think of myself as somebody who is essentially kind," she writes. "Or at least tries to be kind. Kindness is selfless, it doesn't come from a fear of rejection or a desire to be admired, it comes, in its purest form, from wanting, simply, to be good to others." Leary conveys that although pleasing people is a constant battle, the need for her to be kind and compassionate is always at the forefront of her mind. A humorous and honest tale of a woman and her struggle as a people-pleaser. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
