I've Tried Being Nice

 Book 17 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from February 5- 7

I've Tried Being Nice by Ann Leary

published 2024

Summary (via the book jacket)

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 on 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 or Ann Leary's life as revealed in this delightful collection of essays. 

My Opinion

5 stars

I picked up this book while browsing at the library.  A catchy, relatable title of a book of personal essays?  Sold.

I was engaged from the opening paragraphs of the first essay when she described an agent giving her feedback on her first project.  He said he wished the narrator was more likable and she wrote back that she agreed but unfortunately, her book was a memoir and she was the narrator so that probably wasn't an option.  Hilarious.

This was rare because as open and honest as she was about herself, she didn't really "expose" her children or husband.  That was refreshing both to read about a wife/mother that actually focuses on herself when writing essays about her life and as someone that usually feels a tinge of sympathy for people in an author's orbit that don't have a choice about their stories being told.

I didn't know anyone would be able to out-empathize me but the way she talked about animals, especially the bats in her attic, made even me give pause.

I'm adding her book, An Innocent, A Broad to my 'to-read' list immediately.

Quote from the Book

"I've gone through life flailing about aimlessly, trying to figure out how to behave in various situations. I didn't know it, but it turns out, I'm a "rules" person. I just often don't know the rules."