The Anti-Cool Girl

Brutal, brave, and hilarious—this is 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 struggled 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 as 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 the 2016 ABIA Awards for Biography of the Year, and additionally was the Winner of the 2016 ABIA Awards People's Choice for the Matt Richell Award for New Writer of the Year.