Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick-275 pages

I've wanted to read this for a while, but just didn't get around to it until now. I tried to finish it for celebrity author month, but, obviously, I didn't. I did not like this as much as I expected. Kendrick's candor is admirable, but she talks quite a bit about her sex life (not graphically, per se) which I could do without. Another aspect I found wanting was all the language. I didn't expect quite as much (although, there wasn't a LOT) foul language. Overall, the book was an okay read, but I was a bit disappointed.

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick, 275 pages

I am not a big Anna Kendrick fan, but I do enjoy celebrity biographies.   I should have paid more attention to the title.  It took me a while to get into this book and when I did, it only lasted about ten pages.  The book follows Anna as she travels from her hometown in Maine to auditions in New York where she does land some impressive parts.  The book follows her move to LA to become a screen star.  She does score parts in the Twilight series and the movie Up in the Air with George Clooney.  Most people know Anna from the Pitch Perfect movies and her song Cups. Although this book is about a Hollywood star, I think Anna should have waited to write a memoir until she had a little more life under her belt then just the 31 years she is.

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick

Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick, 304 pages

Even before she made a name for herself on the silver screen starring in films like Pitch Perfect, Up in the Air, Twilight, and Into the Woods, Anna Kendrick was unusually small, weird, and “10 percent defiant.”

At the ripe age of thirteen, she had already resolved to “keep the crazy inside my head where it belonged. Forever. But here’s the thing about crazy: It. Wants. Out.” In Scrappy Little Nobody, she invites readers inside her brain, sharing extraordinary and charmingly ordinary stories with candor and winningly wry observations.

With her razor-sharp wit, Anna recounts the absurdities she’s experienced on her way to and from the heart of pop culture as only she can—from her unusual path to the performing arts (Vanilla Ice and baggy neon pants may have played a role) to her double life as a middle-school student who also starred on Broadway to her initial “dating experiments” (including only liking boys who didn’t like her back) to reviewing a binder full of butt doubles to her struggle to live like an adult woman instead of a perpetual “man-child.”

Enter Anna’s world and follow her rise from “scrappy little nobody” to somebody who dazzles on the stage, the screen, and now the page—with an electric, singular voice, at once familiar and surprising, sharp and sweet, funny and serious (well, not that serious).


**Should have listened to the audiobook, it might have gone by faster. Was an ok book; I like getting to know a person's backstory.