This Will Only Hurt a Little

I really, really loved this book. To be totally honest, I really, really love Busy Philipps and ~knew~ I was going to love her book. I was beyond happy to discover that it surpassed my expectations. It is honest and funny and unflinching - you truly feel like you’re talking to an old friend over a glass of wine and she is NOT pulling her punches. Reading Busy’s memoir is painful and joyful and compulsive and I would recommend it to everybody!

I feel like you either love Busy Philipps or you hate her. I love her and I find her to be quite funny and refreshingly honest. I picked this book up because I am a fan of her acting AND her social media, and I knew that I'd be in for a good read. I was. Philipps gives us her life story but with a side of some hot Hollywood tea, and who doesn't appreciate that?

This Will Only Hurt a Little

I Picked Up This Book Because: I’ve head/seen a lot of buzz about it.

The Story:

Busy is raw and emotional and so open and honest in this book. I cried with her, for her. I cheered for her. I rejoiced in her triumphs and was so angry at her humiliations. Busy is an actress I’ve known about for a while but never followed in any capacity. After reading her book I need to look her up on Instagram.

Honestly I think a lot of younger girls would benefit from her story. Especially her younger years when she first starts to explore sex and relationships. There are so many “oh honey, no!”s. This reminds me (who has no children) how important it is to have these uncomfortable conversations with your teenagers. show more

The Random Thoughts:

4 Stars show less

I became a fan of Busy Philipps when she was on Cougar Town. I didn’t know a lot about her career in Hollywood prior to that, I just knew she was on Dawson’s Creek and Freaks and Geeks.
So, the version of Busy I’m most familiar with is her colorful character on Cougar Town and her seemingly happy go lucky real life personality.
Now, I say “real life” when I basically mean how she presents herself on social media and on her talk show.

Her origin story makes up about the first third of this book (about a hundred pages).
She didn’t have an easy time growing up.
She fought with her older sister a lot, she didn’t feel like people liked her that much just as she was.
So, she had a hard time making friends.
And as she got older she had show more a hard time in her relationships with men.
She was raped at 14. Then she had a series of relationship dramas over the years, sometimes the faults were her own and sometimes they were the guy’s fault.
But it seemed like a lot of the time her motivation was to get people to like her, no matter what she had to do.

Honestly a lot of this book is sad.
I wasn’t expecting that.
I though the book would be light and funny and it really wasn’t that.
But I think it was very truthful, I think Busy shows more of herself in this book than she’s usually able to do publicly.

There is of course some Hollywood gossip. If you want to hear about her friendship with Michelle Williams, you will. You’ll get dirt on the cast of Dawson’s Creek. Of course I’d hoped for more on Cougar Town but I’ll admit that I still got the info I wanted. (Spoiler alert: Courtney Cox is as nice as she seems).

I think between this book, the talk show and social media, Busy is finally able to believe she can be liked just as she is.
But I’ll admit to being surprised by how much more serious this side is than the more public persona.

Two additional thoughts:
-this could have benefited from pictures
-if you want a funny bio instead I’d recommend Tina Fey or Mindy Kaling’s books show less

It's always a challenge reviewing biographies. How on earth do you quantify a life like that. Fair warning, this book has major trigger warnings for rape and abortion. It was absolutely a must read/ hear as far as I'm concerned.

I started reading this, got bored and started paging through the book. It wasn't until I got 42% in that I started reading again. The first half of the book is about her childhood and teenager-hood. Haven't we all have had our traumas. Hers weren't particularly exceptional or interesting to me. She seemed more like a spoiled brat. However, I found her life in Hollywood and her observations about how things worked much more interesting. I did read the second half of the book willingly unlike the first half. Busy is clearly highly extroverted and likes to talk to a large number of friends about her life and her problems. The next step was clearly a memoir so she could have a larger audience. She wants validation and maybe she'll get it. I show more just felt kind of sorry for her husband. show less

I listened to this book on tape and it was just wonderful. I laughed and cried and it always kept my attention.