I've Tried Being Nice: Essays

by Ann Leary

Overview

New York Times bestselling author Ann Leary offers a literary feast of humor and wisdom told from the perspective of a recovering people pleaser.

Having arrived at a certain age (her prime), Ann Leary casts a wry backward glance at a life spent trying—and often failing—to be nice. With wit and surprising candor, Leary recounts the bedlam of home bat invasions, an obsession with online personality tests, and the mortification of taking ballroom dance lessons with her actor husband. She describes hilarious red-carpet fiascos and other observations from the sidelines of fame, while also touching upon her more poignant struggles with alcoholism, her love for her family, her dogs, and so much more.

Prepare to laugh, cry, cringe and revel in the comically relatable chaos of Ann Leary’s life as revealed in this delightful collection of essays.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781982120375
Publisher:	S&S/ Marysue Rucci Books
Publication date:	06/04/2024
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	785,468
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Ann Leary is the New York Times bestselling author of a memoir and four novels including The Good House. Her work has been translated into eighteen languages, and she has written for The New York Times, Ploughshares, NPR, Redbook, and Real Simple, among other publications. Her essay, “Rallying to Keep the Game Alive,” was adapted for Prime Video’s television series, Modern Love. Her novel The Good House was adapted as a motion picture starring Sigourney Weaver and Kevin Kline. She lives with her husband in New York. Visit her online at AnnLeary.com.

Editorial Reviews

★ 04/15/2024

This winning essay collection from novelist Leary (The Foundling) riffs on the trifles and tribulations of her life. The title essay describes her efforts to stop being a people pleaser, offering a comical account of how she worked up the gumption to confront a woman whose off-leash dogs habitually agitated Leary’s. Self-deprecating humor is a near constant throughout, as in “Coming of Age,” where Leary recounts how she temporarily stopped dyeing her gray hair when she was in her early 50s: “All the adoring attention I received during my years as a silver fox was from men who were between eighty and a hundred years old.” Other pieces reflect on Leary’s marriage to actor Denis Leary, touching on red carpet mishaps (“We... learned the hard way that it’s best for the famous person or people to step out of a vehicle first”) and how playing tennis together helped save their relationship. A few of the selections strike a more somber tone, as when Leary discusses her alcoholism and discovering as an adult her uncle and grandmother’s troubled pasts, but lighthearted commentary predominates (recalling her first night as an empty nester: “I uttered the words my husband had waited twenty years for me to say: ‘Let’s watch TV while we eat’ ”). The humor lands and the lithe prose elevates Leary’s musings on life’s mundanities. This is a gem. Agent: Margaret Riley King, WME. (June)

Publishers Weekly

[A] winning essay collection...The humor lands and the lithe prose elevates Leary’s musings on life’s mundanities. This is a gem.” —Publisher's Weekly (starred)

“[Leary’s] candid essays invite readers to laugh and cry along with her... She fluidly guides us through her thought processes, while finding humor and displaying a refreshing vulnerability. A humorous and honest tale of a woman and her struggle as a people-pleaser.” —Kirkus

"Ann Leary is a damn delight. Reading this book was like curling up on the couch with an honest, hilarious, sane friend. Not too sane, though - just the perfect amount. Leary’s stories made me feel absolutely desperate to get out of my forties and into my fifties. I tried being nice, too, Ann. Thanks for being honest instead. Read this book!"

—Glennon Doyle, author of #1 New York Times Bestseller Untamed, Founder of Together Rising

From the Publisher