Happy to Help

Amy Wilson
Happy to Help

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Coming January 7, 2025

“In this honest, insightful, and often hilarious account, Amy Wilson explores her experience and frustrations as a people-pleaser—her story will resonate with anyone who has said, 'Happy to help!' one too many times. I couldn’t put it down.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

Award-winning podcast host Amy Wilson has always been an ultimate helper. As a big sister, Girl Scout, personal assistant, sitcom sidekick, and, finally, mother of three, Amy believed it was her destiny to be a people pleaser. She learned to put others first and to look like she had everything under control, even when she very much did not.

Along the way, Amy started to wonder why doing it all had been her job. Still, when she tried to hand over some of her to-dos, no one was interested in taking them. And when she asked for help, in return, she got advice: have a sense of humor, quit nagging, and stop trying to be perfect.

Hilariously relatable, Happy to Help is a collection of essays about how you can be the one everyone else depends on and still be struggling—how you can be “happy to help,” even when, for your own sake, you shouldn’t.

Buy Audiobook

Coming January 7, 2025

“In this honest, insightful, and often hilarious account, Amy Wilson explores her experience and frustrations as a people-pleaser—her story will resonate with anyone who has said, 'Happy to help!' one too many times. I couldn’t put it down.”—Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project

Award-winning podcast host Amy Wilson has always been an ultimate helper. As a big sister, Girl Scout, personal assistant, sitcom sidekick, and, finally, mother of three, Amy believed it was her destiny to be a people pleaser. She learned to put others first and to look like she had everything under control, even when she very much did not.

Along the way, Amy started to wonder why doing it all had been her job. Still, when she tried to hand over some of her to-dos, no one was interested in taking them. And when she asked for help, in return, she got advice: have a sense of humor, quit nagging, and stop trying to be perfect.

Hilariously relatable, Happy to Help is a collection of essays about how you can be the one everyone else depends on and still be struggling—how you can be “happy to help,” even when, for your own sake, you shouldn’t.

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Happy to Help

Amy Wilson

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Meet the author

Amy Wilson

Amy Wilson is the author of When Did I Get Like This? The Screamer, The Worrier, The Dinosaur Chicken Nugget Buyer, and Other Mothers I Swore I'd Never Be (William Morrow). The book was an "Emerging Author" pick at Target, a top seller in Amazon's "Parenting" and "Humor" categories, and the recipient of a Mom's Choice Gold Award.

Amy is also the co-host of What Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood, a Webby-honored parenting podcast which regularly appears at the top of the Parenting and Kids and Family charts in Apple Podcasts. With over 800 episodes and 10 million lifetime downloads, “What Fresh Hell” has a deeply connected and engaged all-mom audience that eagerly awaits new episodes and participates in a 40,000-member community on Facebook.

Amy has served as contributing editor for Parenting Magazine. Her writing has also appeared in Redbook, Parents, and New York Family magazines, and on websites like CNN, NPR, and The New York Times. She has discussed parenting issues on shows like Today, CNN's American Morning, and on ABCNews.com.

Amy is also an actor who starred on Broadway in the Tony-Award-winning The Last Night of Ballyhoo and appeared as a series regular on multiple network sitcoms.

Amy was the performer and creator of Mother Load, a solo show which toured to sixteen cities nationwide after its hit off-Broadway run. Her comedy solo work was also featured at the HBO US Comedy Arts Festival.

get to know Amy

What people are saying...

“In this honest, insightful, and often hilarious account, Amy Wilson explores her experience and frustrations as a people-pleaser—her story will resonate with anyone who has said, 'Happy to help!' one too many times. I couldn’t put it down.”

Gretchen Rubin

author of The Happiness Project

“Wilson's refreshing and hilarious essays illustrate the ridiculous nature of the advice meant to fix women and the unfair emotional labor expectations we place on women. Happy to Help offers a new narrative that inspires women to hold true boundaries and value their time as diamonds. A must-read!”

Eve Rodsky

author of Fair Play

“My fellow type-A souls, Amy Wilson understands us. It's time to put down all we've been carrying, pick up this funny, all-too-relatable memoir, and rejoice in the empathy of a kindred spirit. Let someone else run the world today."

Mary Laura Philpott

author of I Miss You When I Blink

“This book is a gift to women everywhere. Through candid storytelling and incisive analysis, Amy Willson illuminates the pervasive yet often invisible pressures that women encounter in their pursuit of excellence. Happy to Help is . . . a beacon of hope. . . with the gift of a trusted, smart, and funny guide to help along the way.”

Jennifer Wallace

author of Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—and What We Can Do About It

“Funny, wise and delightful—and smart and reassuring—Happy to Help will have you caught between laughing and nodding along, and maybe dropping a few balls you’ve been keeping in the air to give you time to read one more page.”

KJ Dell'Antonia

author of The Chicken Sisters and How to be a Happier Parent 

“Amy Wilson is the wise and good-humored companion we all deserve in our lives as we consider the lessons we want to take from our past experiences and the meanings we hope to create out of whatever may come next. Her writing strikes an insightful balance between lighthearted and soul-searching, reassuring us that we’re not alone in wondering where all the grownups have gone, leaving us–us?—to make The Big Decisions. As emboldening as it is endearing, Happy to Help will have readers questioning, in the best possible way, their roles as mothers and as partners and as people in the world.”

Rebecca N. Thompson, MD

author of Held Together: A Shared Memoir of Motherhood, Medicine, and Imperfect Love

Why Zibby Loves It

I’ve never felt so seen. Ever. I mean, don’t we all feel like this sometimes? It’s just easier to say yes or do it yourself than to delegate or decline. Amy Wilson uses her brilliance to analyze mom culture, a woman’s role in society, how we all take on more than is humanly possibly, and what, if anything, we can do about it. Her insights into her own experience only deepen the narrative.