‘I’m okay!’ The bestselling author of The Anti-Cool Girl returns with a devastating, heartbreaking, brilliant, brave and laugh-out-loud funny memoir of telling lies and being on the brink…

‘I had made it! All my dreams had come true. I had an operating fridge, I was doing brilliantly, and I had written the memoir to prove it. I even had online haters. I had conquered life at 30 and nothing was ever going to go wrong again!’

It was all going so well for Rosie Waterland. Until it wasn’t.

Until, shockingly, something awful happened and Rosie went into agonising free fall.

Until late one evening she found herself in a hospital emergency bed, trembling and hooked to a drip. Over the course of that long, painful night, she kept thinking about how ironic it was, that right in the middle of writing a book about lies, she’d ended up telling the most significant lie of all.

A raw, beautiful, sad, shocking – and very, very funny – memoir of all the lies we tell others and the lies we tell ourselves.

Praise for The Anti-Cool Girl:

‘Hilarious, wise, gutsy, clear-eyed, devastating and uplifting. It’s a marvel.’ Richard Glover

‘Waterland’s writing is … individual, wounded, brilliant and hilarious’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘If Augusten Burroughs and Lena Dunham abandoned their child in an Australian housing estate, she’d write this heartbreaking, hilarious book.’ Dominic Knight, The Chaser

The Anti-Cool Girl was shortlisted for the 2016 Indie Book Awards and for the 2016 ABIA Awards for Biography of the Year, and in addition was the Winner of the 2016 ABIA Awards People’s Choice for the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year

Brutal, brave, hilarious — a full-frontal memoir about surviving the very worst that life can throw at you.

Rosie Waterland has never been cool. Growing up in housing commission, Rosie was cursed with a near perfect, beautiful older sister who dressed like Mariah Carey on a Best & Less budget while Rosie was still struggling with various toilet mishaps. She soon realised that she was the Doug Pitt to her sister’s Brad, and that cool was not going to be her currency in this life.

But that was only one of the problems Rosie faced. With two addicts for parents, she grew up amidst rehab stays, AA meetings, overdoses, narrow escapes from drug dealers and a merry-go-round of dodgy boyfriends in her mother’s life. Rosie watched as her dad passed out/was arrested/vomited, and had to talk her mum out of killing herself.

As an adult, trying to come to grips with her less than conventional childhood, Rosie navigated her way through eating disorders, nude acting roles, mental health issues and awkward Tinder dates. Then she had an epiphany: to stop pretending to be who she wasn’t and embrace her true self — a girl who loved drinking wine in her underpants on Sunday nights — and become an Anti-Cool Girl.

An irrepressible, blackly comic memoir, Rosie Waterland’s story is a clarion call for Anti-Cool Girls everywhere.

‘Individual, wounded, brilliant and hilarious’ Sydney Morning Herald

‘If Augusten Burroughs and Lena Dunham abandoned their child in an Australian housing estate, she’d write this heartbreaking, hilarious book. It made me laugh uproariously, then feel terrible for her, then laugh all over again. Sorry, Rosie.’ Dominic Knight, The Chaser

‘Hilarious, wise, gutsy, clear-eyed, devastating and uplifting. It’s a marvel.’ Richard Glover

The Anti Cool Girl was shortlisted for the 2016 Indie Book Awards and for the 2016 ABIA Awards for Biography of the Year, and in addition was the Winner of the 2016 ABIA Awards People’s Choice for the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year