Lizz Winstead, co-creator of The Daily Present and one of today’s most hilarious comedians and insightful social critics, pens a brilliant accounts of how she discovered her comedic voice.

In this assortment of autobiographical essays, Winstead vividly recounts how she fought to discover her own voice, both like a comedian and as a woman, and exactly how humor became her most effective weapon in confronting life’s issues.

Developing up in the Midwest, the youngest child of conservative Catholic parents, about Lizz Free or Die: Essays Winstead learned early in her life that the straightforward concerns she posed to various authority numbers around her-her parents, her parish priest, even an anti-abortion counselor -prompted many startled appears and uncomfortable silences, but few answers. Her questions rattled people because they subjected the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in the people and establishments she confronted. Yet she didn’t let that stop her from pursuing her dreams.

Crazy and biting, honest and poignant, this no-holds-barred collection offers an in-depth check out the life of 1 of today’s most influential comic voices. In writing about her child years longing to be always a priest, her function in developing The Daily Show, and of her frequently difficult habit of diving into everything head first, asking questions later (resulting in multiple rescue-dog adoptions and travel disasters), Lizz Winstead provides tapped an outrageous and heartfelt vein from the all-too-human comedy.