Foolish

Tales of Assimilation, Determination, and Humiliation

By: Sarah Cooper

Narrated by: Sarah Cooper

Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins

Publisher's summary

In this hilariously revealing debut memoir, comedian Sarah Cooper charts her rise from lip-synching in church to lip-synching the president, and all the dad issues she collected along the way.

As the youngest of four in a tight-knit Jamaican family, Cooper cut her teeth in the mean cornfields of suburban Maryland. Soon she became a charmingly neurotic woman trying to break her worst patterns and reclaim her linen closet. From an early obsession with hair bands to her struggle to escape the immigrant-to-basic-bitch pipeline to her use of the Internet as a marriage counselor (after being fired by two real ones) and the curse of her TED Talk vibe, Cooper invites us to share in her triumphs and humiliations as she tries (and fails) to balance her own dreams with the American dream.

With determination and wit, Cooper mines a lifetime of oppressive perfectionism for your laughter and enjoyment, as she moves from tech to comedy, marriage to divorce, smart to foolish, while proving once and for all that being foolish is actually the smartest thing you can do.


* This audiobook edition includes a downloadable PDF with a chapter list.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2023 Sarah Cooper (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“[An] insightful memoir in which [Cooper] recounts her roller coaster journey in Hollywood, in addition to stories about growing up in an immigrant Jamaican family, her years working in tech and her messy love life…the ups and down are depicted in Foolish with a snappy, self-deprecating wit.” —Los Angeles Times

“The expert writer melds the personal, professional, and embarrassing as she walks readers through all of it…all served with a sense of honesty and humor, and readers will come away from the memoir feeling a special kind of kinship with Cooper.” —Shondaland

“[A] witty memoir-in-essays from comedian Cooper…she catalogs her difficulties juggling a passion for comedy with a career in tech, her unsuccessful stabs at romance…and eventually, her quest to convert her viral social media videos into a bona fide entertainment career. Throughout, Cooper is unfailingly funny and consistently relatable. This is sure to please Cooper’s fans and likely to net her new ones.” —Publishers Weekly

Hilarious

Giving it to you straight, no chaser. Loved it! Sarah keeps it all the way real.

Utterly enjoyable

LOL funny, excellent audio performance. Reminiscent of listening to a stand up routine. Relatable. Endearing. Loved it

So much comedic talent!

Sarah helped get me through the Trump years and I’m so happy to see her career take off in multiple directions. I can’t wait to see what is next for her.

Authentic and Fun (as expected)

My family and I fell in love with Sarah on Tik Tok during the pandemic. This audible doesn’t disappoint. I lol’d at least once every 10 minutes. She’s smart, cute, sexy, wise and awesomely, imperfectly real.

Love Sarah!

I do love Sarah and her story-telling skills. Witty and smart. I’m just confused. Is this just a do-over of her first book? I just started listening and so far am hearing the same stories we heard in the first book.

Hysterical

I liked this memoir enough to come up with the 15 required words, so as to leave a 5 star review. That says a lot.

Lots of fun, many laughs, very honest

Genuinely enjoyed this account of Sarah’s life. And because I feel I now know her and we’re even friends (I mean, she liked a reply I made to a post she made on Threads, so that means we’re friends, right?), I’m just gonna leave this here: marijuana-anonymousDOTorg.

Just sayin’.

We owe Sarah Cooper!

Really funny at times, mildly funny at times, touching at times, cringeworthy at times, but well worth the listen. Sarah's the perfect narrator for this crazy book, and if she doesn't always make us laugh now, she made us laugh at a really important time about a really important matter. Thanks Sarah!

Another fun book

I’ve liked Sarah’s comedy style since her blogging days. I basically discovered her before she was a big name, so you’re welcome for that. I start a lot of books but usually only finish 25% of them. I’ll just say it, That means I finish one out of every four books I start, and I started this one yesterday. Or the day before. Time got away from me while spending ungodly hours digging up years of financial statements for my divorce. So listening about Sarah’s divorce was cathartic. I’m never sure exactly what the word cathartic actually means. But I mean it as something good, calming, and not at all like a catheter, cathartic’s word cousin.

Foolish held my attention. Good stories, very funny. Got some LOLs out of me and lots of LILs. Yay! I thought the jokes and reading all landed really well.

Sarah, what else is goin on?

Some new ground but mostly rehashed bits.

I became a big Sarah Cooper fan when her videos hit and rooted for her success. She is beautiful, funny, and neurotic in appealing ways. Her family stories add to her charm. I saw her do stand up at the DC Improv and was disappointed to hear so much scatological humor (she appeared to be making eye contact with me during an overly long bit about her vagina, some of which you will hear in this book). Still, I thought she was new to stand up and finding her sea legs. I expected more than she delivered here as well. It was more a bunch of riffs and old material I'd heard before, with way too many references to how high she was at this or that time. I am so tired of drug references and excuses. They are cliches. If you find them funny, you need to take stock of your life, and she needs to as well. I was hoping for it to end soon. That said, her delivery was perfect. I would not have finished the book if I had been reading it.