Intimate Warfare: The True Story of the Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward Boxing Trilogy
Dennis Taylor and John J. Raspanti
Book
Intimate Warfare: The True Story of the Arturo Gatti and Micky Ward Boxing Trilogy traces the lives...
1944: A Year Without Goodbyes
Book
The recognized cultural historian and researcher of the Middle Ages relates about the gruesome year...
Shopgirls: True Stories of Friendship, Hardship and Triumph from Behind the Counter
Book
"[Go] behind the glamorous shop fronts and the glitzy shop floors of Britain's department...
Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars
Book
FIERCE FEMMES AND NOTORIOUS LIARS: A DANGEROUS TRANS GIRL'S CONFABULOUS MEMOIR is the highly...
Love&Diaries: Aaron (Romance)
Games and Book
App
Immerse yourself in Love & Diaries: Aaron, an interactive romantic adventure. In your new job you'll...
Murder, etc.
Podcast
GREENVILLE, SC: January 31, 1975: Lt. Frank Looper was about to break the biggest case of his life....
True Crime
Honey From the Lion (Love Across Time #2)
Book
Soulmates across time. A love that was meant to be. In present day, Laurie, tired of corporate...
Historical Contemporary MM Romance Time Travel
The Girl With No Name: The Incredible True Story of a Child Raised by Monkeys
Book
‘It all happened so quickly. One minute I was squatting on the bare earth, preoccupied with...
Kristy H (1252 KP) rated Scrappy Little Nobody in Books
Feb 1, 2018
I've always enjoyed Kendrick and have seen several of her films (and heard her sing about a million times, thanks to my young children and the popularity of the film, <i>Trolls</i>) but didn't know a lot about her early career. Her autobiography does a good job of filling in some of the gaps of Anna's childhood career (working on Broadway at twelve - who knew?!), but isn't told in any chronological order, so we don't get a sense of any real span of her career from Point A to B. Most of the book is told in short little bits. Many of them are quite funny stories, and there are some truly laugh out loud moments. In many cases, Kendrick is a very relatable person, who seems like the type of friend you'd like to hang out with. At other points, she seemed a bit whiny, and for me, the book spent too much time with her protesting about some of the travails of being in the celebrity industry. I can only take so much "woe is me" from famous people who write books about their lives.
The book is on more solid ground when we're reading about Anna's early life, where you gain a true admiration for her talent, and with her silly and snarky stories about her misanthropic personality (misanthropes unite!). Still, the jumping back and forth in time makes it hard to get a true trace on the arc of her life at times, and beyond some of the complaining and expounding on the travails of award shows, press junkets, and the like, there wasn't as much about her post-fame life as I was interested in.
If you like Kendrick's films, or her twitter feed, you'll probably enjoy the book and its organization, even if you find yourself wishing for a little more at the end. She's led an interesting life so far, and I'm sure another autobiography down the road would be quite intriguing.