The Best Thing About My Ass Is That It's Behind Me

Actress and comic Lisa Ann Walter offers a hilarious, star-studded collection of essays encouraging women to laugh at what they can't change, enjoy a guilty pleasure or two, and finally accept the lives and the bodies they're in now. The star of shows like Abbott Elementary and movies like The Parent Trap, Shall We Dance, and Bruce Almighty delivers a warm, wry, honest, and effective exhortation to find happiness where you are, in a serenity prayer for today’s woman that’s perfect for fans of Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, Valerie Bertinelli’s Losing It and Chelsea Handler’s My Horizontal Life.

Follow one woman's bumpy, cellulite-riddled ride through size-0 Hollywood and learn how she went from body-dysmorphic to sassy-asstastic in only twenty-five short years of dieting, thousands of dollars in "procedures,". . . and one pair of industrial-strength Spanx.

From the best girlfriend you didn't know you had comes this "I Can't Believe She Said That" guide to life in the real world. Actress and comic Lisa Ann Walter dishes about parenthood and the dangers of girl-on-girl snarking, explains why skinny actresses act crazy, and gives riotous advice on everything from the dating mistakes we all make to ten things you should subtract when you weigh yourself (self-tanner and dental work, for starters . . .).

So what do you get when you drop a longtime self-loather into the glitz and glamour of Hollywood? This hysterical, and brutally honest, look at the impossible standard of perfection for which so many of us strive. Walter boldly shares her lifelong struggle with low self-esteem—which, in her case, includes plenty of painful auditions, failed relationships, and awkward celebrity encounters, plus lots of impossible diets, questionable injectables, and dubious cosmetic procedures. Along the way, the "celebrity adjacent" Walter also tells her sometimes warm, often cringeworthy, and always funny Hollywood stories (including the reason she'd kill for Richard Gere).

She also shares her sage advice by offering features such as ways to improve your self-esteem that won't cost you a dime:

Four words:

Push-up. Bra. Construction. Site. You don't even have to look good to get a response. Just wear sunglasses, square your shoulders, and toss your hair. Then count the whistles.

Start frequenting your local gay bar. Both gays and lesbians are much more effusive about how fabulous you are! And you'll get free drinks!

Always be seen with decrepit old men—you'll look young and beautiful in comparison. Think how well this works for those Girls Next Door.