Rookie Mistakes: A Grown-Up’s Field Guide to Getting Your Act Together

Comedian Bandas debuts with an amusing collection of essays on faith and messing up. Bandas suggests that “it’s through sharing our screw-ups and changes of heart that we can forge true connections and grow throughout the course of our lives,” and to that end she shares life lessons couched in humorous personal stories that touch on growing up Catholic, living with obsessive compulsive disorder, and the trials of motherhood. The author tells of how she was hired to be an ambassador for the Boston Red Sox when she was a teenager and became overwhelmed by imposter syndrome before realizing that “never have I ever stopped something bad from happening because I spent a whole lot of time worrying about it.” She describes struggling to cultivate a personal relationship with God because of the “gatekeeperish nature” of Christianity, but reports that her outlook changed when God answered her prayers asking for a sign that she should adopt a child. Self-effacing humor and pop culture references keep things lighthearted and entertaining (“Punky Brewster would never,” Bandas writes of forgetting to feed her childhood pet guinea pig for a week). Readers will be charmed by these rollicking anecdotes. (July)