Category: Memoir

Title: Unqualified
Author: Anna Faris
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Dutton
Source: Goodreads Giveaway
Release Date: October 24, 2017
Rating: ★★★★

Goodreads Synopsis:

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. Her comic memoir and first book, Unqualified, will share Anna’s candid, sympathetic, and entertaining stories of love lost and won. Part memoir, part humorous, unflinching advice from her hit podcast Anna Faris Is Unqualified, the book will reveal Anna’s unique take on how to navigate the bizarre, chaotic, and worthwhile adventure of finding love.

Hilarious, authentic, and actually useful, Unqualified is the book Anna’s fans have been waiting for. 

Review:

Anna Faris will always be “that girl who had Monica and Chandler’s babies” to me. She’s so funny! I was so excited when I won the giveaway for her book. 

I liked her stories. All her stories of boyfriends and relationships were quite funny. She seems really down to earth and real, which was nice to read about. 

The book got off to a rough start, with Anna (and Chris in his foreword) saying over and over that she doesn’t know how to write a book. That was frustrating, because if you don’t know how/don’t want to, just don’t do it! But it improved greatly from there. 

One major problem with this book is her relationship with Chris Pratt. In August, they announced they are getting divorced. However, she references her happy marriage many times throughout the book. This really took away a lot of her credibility. If they had waited a few months to announce the divorce, it would have made this book much better (and it would have benefited him as well because he wrote the foreword to the book). I heard that she has revised the book for the final edition so that it commented on her divorce, but my ARC didn’t have these changes. 

Other than that, I enjoyed this book. Even if you aren’t looking for relationship advice, this was a fun memoir to read. 

Title: Shoebox Funeral
Author: Elizabeth Voltz
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Animal Media Group
Release Date: April 25, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Elizabeth Voltz grew up on a farm in Wolf Creek. She is one of ten kids. She is the second youngest. She often made her own fun by playing with the animals on the farm, particularly the cats. However, this also meant she had to bury her beloved friends starting from a young age. This memoir tells of her experiences with these animals.

I could relate to a lot of what she talked about in regards to the pet cats. She distinguished between the house cats and the barn cats. At my house, we feed a lot of stray cats. I like to play with some of the kittens and they all have names. I understood the emotional attachment she got to them, even when they weren’t really her pets. Often this attachment leads to heartbreak when they get sick or injured beyond recovery.

This is a well written book. I enjoyed a lot of it, but the heartbreaking stories of having to bury pets were too much for me. I’ve had to do that before and it dredged up too many unhappy memories. This is a good book, but too emotional for me.

Title: Just Jen: Thriving Through Multiple Sclerosis
Author: Jen Powley
Genre: Memoir
Publisher: Roseway Publishing
Release Date: May 1, 2017
Rating: ★★★★★

Jen Powley was diagnosed with Mulitple Sclerosis at the age of 15. Now she is in her late 30s and has written a memoir about living with MS.

Jen grew up in Alberta and later moved to Halifax, where she has earned multiple degrees. Despite the many challenges she has faced since her diagnosis, Jen never gave up. Rather than dismissing her dreams, she adapted them to her new situation. For example, since she is now in a wheelchair, it would be impossible for her to go rockclimbing like she always dreamed of doing. Instead, she had a colleague strap her to his back while he propelled down the side of a building, making her feel like she was rock climbing.

Jen’s story highlights how inaccessible the world is. When she attended a lecture, she noticed that the wheelchair ramp only led to the seats on the end of the aisles rather than the front podium. This shows that the architect imagined someone in a wheelchair attending a lecture in that room but not actually giving the lecture.

Jen has a great sense of humour. This came across in her narrative. She dictated her book with the help of her assistants because she does not have the use of her hands anymore. It’s amazing that this technology allowed Jen to tell the story of her life.

I had the pleasure of seeing Jen speak at the Festival of Literary Diversity. She is truly inspiring. She has faced many challenges but she never let them stop her. Jen is also very talented, as demonstrated through her poignant, humourous, and touching narrative.