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.

What do I think…?

Part memoir, part advice, part observations on life – Anna’s book covers a lot of ground for what is quite a quick read. I picked it up as a random read a while ago mainly because I like the person she comes across as when interviewed and I’ve enjoyed some of her movies, like the original Scary Movie and What’s Your Number? is favourite rom-com of mine.

The book is a collection of different pieces: some parts inspired by the Unqualified podcast (which I’m going to give a try now, having read this book!) and the advice that has come from that, with Anna reflecting these ideas back at memories of her own romantic life. Other parts are straight memoir, as you run through Anna’s early career as defined in relationships she had along the way, or how she felt about them. The writing is genuinely funny and feels direct and honest – which you would hope to get from someone who my earliest lasting memory on film is being blasted onto a ceiling on a fountain of stuff…

There’s not much age difference between us and so I found it interesting some of the clear crossovers of experience, which really speaks of the universality I think of what she is writing about.

The most moving part of the book for me was her pregnancy and the birth of her son Jack. I was laughing along with her words, remembering how clueless you can be going into and through pregnancy – FYI reading The Rough Guide to Pregnancy and Birth doesn’t mean you are an idiot, just that you’re happy to revise for an exam! And this is how Anna’s story went, until the unexpected happened. I can’t imagine how it must feel to go through what she and other parents go through when babies come early or have significant medical issues. You can feel helpless enough later on when kids are older and something happens, let alone within the first few hours of bringing them in to the world.

I really enjoyed the parts that were about Anna’s experience in life and her professional career, but these were not the main focus of the book, they were examples used to show some of the relationship ideas being discussed. This makes sense as ‘examining relationships’ is the framework the book is built around, but I would like to see more of this from her – maybe a ‘proper’ memoir in the future – as she has a lot to say and offers good insight of her own experiences, that I would like to see more. 4* read for me.