Crushmore

Podcrushed cohosts Badgley, Ansari, and Kavelin debut with an joint memoir-in-essays that successfully turns the interview format of their celebrity-focused podcast on themselves. In short, punchy essays—each written by one of the authors—they discuss the major anxieties, image crises, and high points of their early lives, employing the same humor and openheartedness that listeners of the podcast have come to expect. Gossip Girl star Badgley recalls the brain-scrambling experience of auditioning in Los Angeles as a 12-year-old budding actor, while Ansari unpacks the disorientation of jetting around the world for her parents' jobs at UNICEF and frequently introducing herself to brand-new social circles. Kavelin, meanwhile, offers a tender account of her fraught relationship with her late mother, whose buoyant enthusiasm by turns encouraged and mortified a young Kavelin. Along the way, each author digs deep into their teenage insecurities, reflecting on the ways they have (or haven't) followed them into adulthood; Badgley, for instance, still feels undereducated after leaving school as a teenager to focus on acting. Revealing, entertaining, and surprisingly cohesive, this will appeal even to readers who have never pressed play on an episode of Podcrushed. Agents: Alex Rice and Emily Westcott, CAA.