Enter Whining, by Fran Drescher (1996)
When you read a celebrity's autobiography, you have to be prepared for a certain level of bragging. Usually it's coy bragging, which is even worse: "Well, I just couldn't believe it when Mr. Most Famous Director said that I was the best actress he'd ever seen; who woulda thunk it, me just a little ol' girl from the sticks?" But the title is so clever and the jacket photo so cute, and she has liberally sprinkled the book with personal photos and I love that, so I forgive a few extra brags. After all, what am I reading a celebrity's book for if I don't want to hear every nice thing everyone's ever said about them, and every clever zinger they've ever delivered? But I could have done without a few of the more wincy moments, such as when she complains petulantly about her friend's children interfering with her relaxing vacation, implying that babies wouldn't be so interruptive if their parents brought them up right. And it seems so self-congratulatory to mention it when fans say things like, "This is even more exciting than when I met Barbra Streisand!" The comparison begs argument, and it's not nice to bring that sort of remark to Barbra Streisand's attention. Overall, a moderately good book if you're a fan of Fran's.
Witch Week, by Diana Wynne Jones (1982)
I don't recommend a steady diet of it, but the occasional trip into the Young Adult section of the library can be a treat. That's where you'll find Witch Week, if you're lucky enough to have a copy at your library.
In an alternate universe, where witches are common but witchcraft is illegal, a group of children attend a boarding school for "witch orphans" (children left behind when their parents were burned for being witches) and children with other peculiarities. As several of the children discover their shameful (and punishable by death) witchcraft abilities, loyalties redivide. Fun spells, such as one that makes everything one child says come true, abound.
This is an utterly charming and entertaining book, full of everything I loved about books as a child. Highly recommended, especially to adults who could use the break from more serious literary pursuits.
The Way I See It, by Patti Davis (1992)
"The way she sees it" turns out to be "through the eyes of an eternal teenager from hell." Patti Davis, the daughter of Ronald and Nancy Reagan, gets back at her parents in slammed-door, "I hate you, you ruined my life!"-style with this bitchy memoir.
The thesis seems to be: "My parents were abusive and/or withdrawn, and I asked for nothing except love which I never got, and now I am mature enough to look at their faults objectively and with compassion, and publish all those faults for everyone to see." The author claims that "to tell a story truthfully, everything has to be told," without seeming to realize that when you tell only your side of a story, calling it "everything" is laughable. And if you tell "the truth" to get publicity, revenge, and money, it's tainted truth at best.
And while we're on the subject of truth, knowledge does not equal possession. Knowing someone's secret doesn't give you the right to tell it, even if it is "the truth." If your friend is a closeted homosexual, if your sister is having an affair, if your mother is taking Valium, you may not tell other people just because it's "the truth." Those secrets do not belong to you, no matter how you came to know them. Patti Davis is party to a number of secrets, family and otherwise; she does not have the right to reveal those secrets to her best friend, let alone to the entire world.
That said, it DOES sound bad, being the daughter of two highly public people who showed their flaws only in private. I still remember being in grade school, feeling outraged that my teacher "acted nice" around the principal when she was "so mean" to us. That is, however, the way of the world: we are all nicer when watched. It is not hypocrisy to try not to be awful in public, it is human nature. Most of us grow up and realize that. Some of us, it is clear, do not. In a family of actors and politicians, it seems as if it would be an especially easy lesson to learn, but no.
Readers who are parents will find themselves wondering if their own children are carefully storing up all their mistakes to later throw back in their faces, the way Patti Davis has. Her mother didn't tip. Her mother wanted a boy. Her mother bought her clothes she didn't like. Her mother didn't give her as many presents as she gave her brother. Her parents didn't encourage her when she wanted to tell everyone how awful they were to her, even though it was "just the truth." Her parents wouldn't keep giving her money when she was a grown woman. Her mother wouldn't let her have sweets. After a hundred pages or so it becomes clear that if her parents had been Jesus Christ and Mother Teresa, Patti Davis would have complained that they never had time for her, that they were too involved in their work, and that their politics were all wrong. Then she would have blamed them for her failed acting career.
Throughout, the ridiculous premise is that Patti Davis now sees her parents compassionately and with great understanding. She exhibits this by saying things such as that she now understands that her mother did such-and-such because she was insecure, emotionally warped, repressed, and on drugs, but that she, Patti Davis, loves her anyway--as far as she CAN love, considering she was brought up by a horrible mother. Oh brother.
The photos in the book show a sullen, sulky girl, and the tone of the book reflects it. I have to say--if we're pretending that truth-telling is a mandate--that I felt like giving her a good slap myself by the time I finished reading. And the worst crime of all: with all the face-slapping, all the political insider talk, all the dirt on a famous family, all the talk about the quest to lose virginity--the book is still boring.
What Falls Away, by Mia Farrow (1997)
After reading Patti Davis's angry-adolescent memoir (see review, above), I nearly didn't read the next book on my pile, Mia Farrow's memoir. I couldn't face another long, self-congratulatory, everyone-else-blaming, spiteful summary of how life has been unfair. Boy, did I ever almost miss out. Patti Davis's memoir had made me wonder why anyone would ever tell his or her life story, considering how life stories inevitably reveal us all to be whining, petulant, flaw-ridden, self-centered idiots, pathetically unable to conjure the merest breath of objectivity or truth. Mia Farrow's memoir made me grateful for the privilege of a peek into another human being's life.
Mia Farrow gives just the right weight to her stories and to her life; she knows she's a celebrity and that we'll be interested, but she doesn't overestimate it. And it is rare, RARE, to find a memoir that reads like can't-put-down fiction. I have started many an autobiography on some fascinating person, only to peter out after 100 pages or so. This one I read almost straight through, with continual glances at the included photographs.
Much of the book is thrilly-chilly exciting. You can't tell me you don't know that Woody Allen, Mia's long-term boyfriend, ran off with Mia's daughter Soon-Yi. Knowing this makes what leads up to it almost unbearable: you know what's coming as soon as Soon-Yi is adopted. How on earth does Mia Farrow present "just her side" in a way that makes me feel I have the whole story? Just as I was thinking, "Well, why did she stay with the jerk if things were so bad?," she begins a chapter: "Why did I stay with Woody Allen when so much was wrong?"
And of course the book is not only about that dreadful situation. Much of it is devoted to Mia Farrow's earlier marriages to Frank Sinatra and André Previn; to the stories of how each child came into her family; to talk of movies she made and celebrities she knew (including Salvador Dalí); to stories of her childhood, her parents, her siblings. She could have doubled the length of the book and still held my interest: I wanted to know more about her siblings' lives, more about her children's lives.
There were a few little inconsistencies that confused me, but all of them were small and possibly just typos or things that could have been explained but weren't. For example, she says she and Woody Allen tried for 2 years to conceive before deciding to adopt; in the court papers included, the time is given as 6 months. Her childhood bout of polio, which is described as if she were hospitalized for weeks if not months, is mentioned in an enclosed newspaper article as lasting 6 days. She mentions that she wanted a dog badly but Frank Sinatra didn't give in--but a photo of him with "our dog Samantha" is included. Things like that, not crucial to the plot, and maybe I just accidentally missed the explanation--but things that made me feel lost for a moment.
Overall, I believe this is the best, most gripping memoir I have ever read. I hate to oversell it, since books read even better when you have low expectations, but I can't help myself.
The Zygote Chronicles, by Suzanne Finnamore (2002)
I loved it, I LOVED it. The style reminded me of Elizabeth Berg, one of my current top favorite authors: it was true and clear and incisive and insightful and funny and interesting. The author documents, letter-to-the-fetus-style, her pregnancy and the birth of her child. I was constantly touched, surprised, or laughing, and always entertained. I suppose the best reader would be one who was interested in pregnancy, but I wouldn't have considered myself interested in someone else's pregnancy per se, not before I read this book. How about this: if you're not ANTI-pregnancy, give it a few pages and see what you think.
Girl, Interrupted, by Susanna Kaysen (1993)
With the exception of the chapter in which she complains about her diagnosis, this is an intriguing and even entertaining look at life inside a psychiatric hospital. It reminded me of I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, which impressed me deeply when I read it in high school and might impress me less if I re-read it now, but nevertheless that's the book this book reminded me of. Mental illness and psychiatric hospitals are made to seem both appealing and horrible. Including copies of her various hospital reports and papers was a nice touch.
Tales From a Traveling Couch: A Psychotherapist Revisits His Most Memorable Patients, by Robert U. Akeret (1995)
If only the therapists and patients who participate in psychotherapy weren't so inclined to the dramatic, it would be easier to take them seriously. There's so much chest-beating and garment-rending and play-acting, it's hard not to snort. Reading this collection of a few of the more interesting interactions between a psychotherapist and his patients, I found myself feeling that he (the psychotherapist) had been played for a fool at times by patients who took advantage of his sympathetic nature in order to perform their well-rehearsed sympathy-eliciting displays. Okay, so the guy in love with a polar bear was probably on the level, but everyone else seemed to be working their unhappy childhoods for all they were worth. It's an unfortunately common human weakness.
Still, the stories are riveting. Without all the wallowing in layers of analysis ("How do I feel about what I just thought about what she just said?"), which you can skim judiciously, it's a fascinating look into what it might be like to be a psychotherapist. Furthermore, the premise of the book is particularly grabbing: a psychotherapist goes back 30 years later to find some of the patients he's always wondered about, to discover if therapy actually turned their lives around or not. Did it? You (with the help of the ever-present slicing-and-dicing of the author) can decide for yourself.
If Looks Could Kill, by Kate White (2002)
Kate White, editor in chief of Cosmopolitan magazine, has written a murder mystery featuring Cat Jones, editor in chief of Gloss magazine. If you are wondering if you might spend half the novel suspicious that certain insider remarks are being made, the answer is yes.
As for the book itself, it is fair to good. At first it seemed that the main character (freelance writer Bailey Weggins) was going to spend the entire book thinking to herself: "Who could it have been, and why?" without getting out of that circular holding pattern. The mystery was intriguing, however, and it roped me in. Before I knew it I'd finished the book. The ending is satisfactory. I will have to spend a few days mulling it over to be absolutely sure it works, but I believe it does. Oh, wait, I just thought of a loose end that wasn't taken care of. Hmm. It doesn't ruin the book, but nor is it a good sign this early in the mulling process.