Her manager told her that people would probably be more interested in her memoir before a series centering on magic and dragons, so she started writing her own story two years ago.<\/p>\n
A self-diagnosed workaholic, Tomlinson spent 10 years constantly moving. From a combination of mold exposure and severe burnout from filming \u201cAfter Midnight\u201d on weekdays and performing in different cities on weekends, she fell ill for months and was forced to take a break.<\/p>\n
In that time, she wrote \u201cActually, Nevermind.\u201d Coming out Tuesday, the autobiographical essay collection delves into the aspects of life that she changed her mind about since her mother died when she was 8 years old.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, Nevermind\u201d opens with an eclectic mix of three quotes from \u201cAnne of Green Gables\u201d by Lucy Maud Montgomery, celebrated writer Joan Didion, and the 2001 Anne Hathaway-led comedy film \u201cThe Princess Diaries.\u201d Tomlinson wanted a combination of funny and serious excerpts capturing grief, but also a quote about evolving as a person.<\/p>\n
In the classic coming of age novel \u201cAnne of Green Gables,\u201d a young Anne Shirley states, \u201cI\u2019m not a bit changed \u2014 not really. I\u2019m only just pruned down and branched out. The real me \u2014 back here \u2014 is just the same.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the essence of Tomlinson\u2019s realizations in her book \u2014 she\u2019s growing into herself but that girl who started performing stand-up shows on the church circuit at 16 is still in there.<\/p>\n
Tomlinson has a bit from her first Netflix special \u201cQuarter-Life Crisis\u201d about your 20s being a period to \u201cfish trash out of the lake before it freezes over.\u201d She asks how I\u2019m enjoying my 20s, to which I bluntly reply, \u201cIt\u2019s a nightmare.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aMy 20s were a nightmare, too, and I was waiting to be 30, and I was like, \u2018When I turn 30, I\u2019m going to be solidified and great.\u2019 And then I turned 30, and it was like the last two years I have probably changed just as much, if not more, than I did in my 20s,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s been much rockier than I anticipated.\u201d<\/p>\n
In speaking with her friends, she realized they also felt a disconnect between the lives they envisioned for themselves and their realities. Tomlinson channeled that uncertainty into a jumping-off point for her book.<\/p>\n
She reflected on when she began questioning the trajectory of her life and traced it back to her mother\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI didn\u2019t know if I was even going to write about my mom at all when I first got the book [deal] because I was like, \u2018Well, I talked about it in \u2018Look At You,\u2019 and I\u2019ve talked about it in interviews,\u2019 but that\u2019s the thing about losing a parent or any big traumatic grief event is you\u2019re always getting hit by waves of it, and then you\u2019re always untangling it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
In creating \u201cActually, Nevermind,\u201d Tomlinson pored through her mother\u2019s diary, deciding to include a few excerpts in the finished book. For most of Tomlinson\u2019s life, she regarded her mother as a flawless, devout Christian whom she desperately yearned to impress.<\/p>\n
![\"Blond](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790103983_912_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
Drawing on her mother\u2019s diary, estrangement from her father and complex sibling bonds, Tomlinson confronts impossible standards, relinquishes parentified guilt and reframes what family means after loss.<\/p>\n
(Sela Shiloni)<\/p>\n
Her mother married young, so she tried to hit that milestone, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t manage it and self-sabotaged a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cNow, I\u2019m grateful that I didn\u2019t get married young, but at the time it was all I wanted because I wanted to fit in and I wanted to be someone she would\u2019ve liked, someone she had things in common with.\u201d<\/p>\n
Through reading her mother\u2019s diary entries, Tomlinson began to heal from the impossible standards she set for herself to follow in her mother\u2019s footsteps.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aShe was sort of this perfect, infallible character in my brain for so much of my childhood, so it was helpful to read about her being like, \u2018I\u2019m nervous about getting married. We got pregnant on accident,\u2019\u201d Tomlinson says. \u201cThere\u2019s stuff I didn\u2019t include about arguments she had with my dad in college. It was just very human, and it was very encouraging to go, \u2018Oh, it wasn\u2019t like this perfect frictionless decision for her.\u2019 It\u2019s not like she just nailed it and did everything perfectly.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Tomlinson\u2019s largest shifts in perspective was no longer feeling parental responsibility toward her three younger siblings.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI went from their sister to a weird half parent figure when I was still a kid,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd I made all these missteps because I was also a kid. And then young adulthood was confusing because I had been waiting for everyone to get old enough to be friends with me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, Tomlinson\u2019s siblings all take care of each other in their own ways. She refers to them as her \u201csoul mates\u201d and feels guilty wishing for a romantic partner when she already has three lifelong best friends.<\/p>\n
While Tomlinson remains close with some of her mother\u2019s relatives, she has been estranged from her father for five years. She writes about the sadness of not speaking to someone you feel so alike, but she doesn\u2019t go into extreme detail about cutting ties.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThere\u2019s some things you just want to keep for yourself, you know?\u201d she says. \u201cYou don\u2019t want every painful private detail about who you are and what\u2019s happened to you available to Google because it just makes you feel like you\u2019re a raw nerve walking around, and you can\u2019t get it back once you\u2019ve shared it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd you want something to say on a fifth date,\u201d she jokes.<\/p>\n
After processing the heartache of losing another parent in a different way, Tomlinson allowed herself to miss the good memories with her father and assuage any longing for revenge.<\/p>\n
In her essay \u201cI\u2019m Gay Now,\u201d Tomlinson explores her bisexuality and the transition from chasing male validation to feeling comfortable in herself. She came out at around 28 years old. Part of what took her until then was feeling the need to prove that she deserved to identify as queer.<\/p>\n
![\"Blod](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1790103984_717_.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
In essays on sexuality, faith and ambition, she trades the pursuit of perfection for hard-won self-acceptance, exposing a more vulnerable offstage self still learning to do her best.<\/p>\n
(Sela Shiloni)<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI think that\u2019s just a theme throughout my entire life,\u201d she says. \u201cI felt like I needed to earn the label of comedian. I felt like I needed to earn the label of queer. I needed to earn love.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her brother helped her understand that she didn\u2019t have to achieve the title \u2014 she\u2019s always been gay.<\/p>\n
With all of her adulthood realizations, Tomlinson also reflects on what she wishes she could tell her younger self. \u200aTalking to a 16-year-old Taylor, she writes, \u201cThe most valuable thing about us cannot be all the things we haven\u2019t done.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aSo much of my childhood was like, \u2018Don\u2019t drink, don\u2019t do drugs, don\u2019t have sex. Don\u2019t step out of line,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cI wanted to experience things more than I wanted to be this pure version of myself that was performing for the Lord.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, Nevermind\u201d is a reflection of Tomlinson when she puts down the microphone, and she is nervous for readers to see that side of her.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aI feel pretty good about me on stage. Me in the room, I feel really insecure about,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019ve gotten to a place where I feel pretty confident about taking up like 45 minutes to an hour and a half of your time. Eight hours, I think, is what the audiobook is. I\u2019m like, \u2018Eight hours is a lot more than that.\u2019 So it\u2019s been a real test of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
After years of chasing perfection, Tomlinson says she finds comfort in knowing that she may never be the world\u2019s greatest anything.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aIn my 20s, I think I was always trying to be the best,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd now I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m going to do my best.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an alternate universe where Taylor Tomlinson is a young adult fantasy author holed up in a cabin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632724,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[14111,268623,268621,740,20295,53702,93,268622,63961,61,60,146541,15719,13047,268620,3470,3322,282,742],"class_list":["post-632723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tv","tag-anne","tag-backup-career","tag-backup-life","tag-book","tag-combination","tag-diary","tag-entertainment","tag-green-gables","tag-hour","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-midnight","tag-mother","tag-quote","tag-taylor-tomlinson","tag-thing","tag-time","tag-tv","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632724"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}