Review x2!: Memoirs by Busy Phillips and Kristin Chenoweth

     I've been focusing my audiobook listening on memoirs lately because I realized that they're basically always narrated by the author and it's so much more fun to listen to them tell you stories about their lives themselves! These memoirs in particular turned me into fans of these two women, who, I'm sort of sad to admit, I really knew next to nothing about before this. I also found it hilarious that one of them mentions the other one in their book. Read on for my full reviews

A Little Bit Wicked: Life, Love, and Faith in Stages by Kristin Chenoweth
     Released: April 14, 2009
     Read from: 12/13/19-12/16/19
     Format: Audiobook (Overdrive)
     My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
     Goodreads Rating: 3.83 stars

"Life's too short. But I'm not." -Kristen Chenoweth

     This book came to me at the perfect time; now, when I've recently become way more interested in Broadway and other performances than I ever had been before. I had this book on my TBR before I even really knew who Kristen Chenoweth was. I'd heard of her, but that's about it. However, recently I watched a Christmas movie with her in it and learned that she starred with Idina Menzel in the original cast of Wicked. I saw Wicked on tour and it was great but now I want to see it again! If only they were still in the cast.

      This book made me a Kristin Chenoweth fan. She's adorable, smart, sassy, funny... She's done a lot more than I realized she did and now I need to hunt down more of her work! If you're a Kristin Chenoweth fan definitely check out this book. She also narrates the audiobook which I loved. My favorite parts were hearing about her early life (how she was born, adopted and raised in Oklahoma and how she began acting and doing pageants, singing and performing at a very early age), and her Broadway days, especially Wicked. She talks more about her time on Broadway than her TV shows, which are what I was not familiar with so I was fine with that. But mixed in there you'll hear all sorts of stories about her personal life as well as her personal feelings about her career over the years. Definitely a good one if you like memoirs, whether you already know things about the person or not.

For more on this book, check it out on my Goodreads page!

This Will Only Hurt a Little by Busy Phillips
     Released: October 22, 2019
     Read from: 12/16/19-12/19/19
     Format: Audiobook (Scribd)
     My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
     Goodreads Rating: 3.93 stars

A hilarious, heartfelt, and refreshingly honest memoir and New York Times bestseller by the beloved comedic actress known for her roles on Freaks and Geeks, Dawson’s Creek, and Cougar Town who has become “the breakout star of Instagram stories...Imagine I Love Lucy mixed with a modern lifestyle guru” (The New Yorker).

     This book was more than 4 stars but I didn’t quite get my 5 star feeling from it, so I almost gave it the 4.5 but really, Busy Phillips is just freaking awesome and she deserves this 5 star rating so I’m rounding up.

     I liked this book a lot more than I expected to. What's funny, is I didn't realize I even knew who Busy Phillips was when I first saw this book a few months ago. I figured it out when I saw a commercial for her new talk show and put the connection between her and her character in White Chicks which is a movie my family and I LOVED and I'm not sure why it didn't get more attention than it did. It's absolutely hilarious.

     What I liked about this book wasn't always necessarily her stories, but the fact that she'd been through it all and was now sharing it. Sharing how it made her who she is today, and how she still has work to do. I loved how determined and hard working she was throughout her whole life. No matter what it was; personal life or career, she had setbacks that may have made her cry for a week, but she still never gave up on trying to achieve her goals.

     She may have been told that no one would give a crap about a book about her life, but I did. She has been through a lot. She may not have been poor, or abused, but she lived a life many Americans live, and made a lot of choices, good and bad, that a lot of people can relate to, and even though she may not be Angelina Jolie, she's still a star, and sometimes its comforting to see that someone so successful has been through some of the same crap in life you have. But she still never stopped fighting. She's still working to improve herself. I loved that the book ended with her realizing that she wanted to work on a new goal: her late night talk show. When the reason that I ended up coming to this book was because of a commercial for that very show. Look, she got it.

     I just found I was rooting for her the entire time, in everything she did in life. I found her hilarious, open and honest and listening to the audiobook narrated by her was truly entertaining. Sort of wish it wasn't over now LOL. I've now added two TV shows to go find and watch because I want to go back in time and see her in them, and I'll be keeping an eye out for more of her stuff in the future! 

For more about this book, check it out on my Goodreads page!