Wishful Drinking
by Carrie Fisher
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Book Reviews of Wishful Drinking
Book Review: Book Captures Hit One-Woman Show
Summary: 4 Stars
I heard raves about her one-woman show, but didn't take great interest because I'm deaf and could never see it without missing most of the content. So it was great coming across the book and seeing her show in words.
While the book made me chuckle at times, I get the feeling it doesn't quite capture the show as I know people's faces, inflections, and other body movements can make a difference to a presentation.
But the book offers a wonderful alternative for those who can't see the show whether because of distance or hearing loss. I also appreciate her honest addressing of dealing with being bipolar. Someone close to me has similar issues.
It's nice having a real-life account from someone well-known with an impressive resume to show my family member that it's possible to accomplish a lot -- just hope he does it without the drinking and drugs part. Things have changed from her early bipolar days to today, so it could mean the difference.
She's a child of a famous divorce, a divorcee, a mother, and a career woman. This story is a caricature of her life -- it blends humor and lack of remembering things exactly (she admits it repeatedly -- thanks to shock therapy).
As a busy professional with children, I managed to read the book in less than two hours. It was nice to read something from my standard business nonfiction and get a laugh out of her stories (not laugh at her, mind you).
If you like autobiographies, humor and fiction, you'll enjoy this. Although not fiction, it feels like it as so many unusual things have happened to her that will never happen to most of us. C'mon, like you'll ever get to play Princess Leia or find a friend (not significant other) dead in your bed.
Book Review: A celebrity's dysfunctional history, sad and bittersweet.
Summary: 2 Stars
Carrie Fisher reveals her whole life in this book. Her addictions, her sobriety, how her mom dealt with these behaviors, and a few comments about her absent, narcissistic self-absorbed dad.
But these stories are only funny if you care about the celebrity carrie fisher. If you don't really care about Ms. Fisher, then this autobiography is dry. I bought this because i thought it would focus on her attempts at sobriety, in the realm of "Drinking: A Love Story. Her addiction struggles are discussed, but it's not the focus of the book.
The book is mainly about her hollywood upbringing, career and the craziness of it all. Ms. Fisher has had some major life crises (elctroshock therapy, a divorce because her husband and father to her on decides he's gay).
She also discusses the struggles of her mom Debbie Reynolds, who lost two fortunes to her 2nd and 3rd husbands.
In the end, she shows that wealth doesn't bring happiness. I have a tendency to envy wealthy celebrities. But this book helped me understand my envy is misplaced.
Also, there is also a LOT of re-cycled material from her other book "The Best Awful". There are whole paragraphs that are word for word. Carrie Fisher retells the same story over and over again, about the poor little rich girl. If it was so tragic, so awful, why does she parade it around for decades? It's because these celebrity cry-fests are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
The book is a followup to her one-woman show of the same title. probably the same jokes too. The humor didn't work too well for me in the audiobook. But i doubt i would have laughed if i was at the show either. There is a deep sadness to the stories of her life.
Book Review: Not Your Typical Autobiography......but Full of Laughs !!
Summary: 5 Stars
Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking" should not be read as an autobiography.Rather, it should be read and enjoyed as a book of Comedy.Carrie describes her famous parents,Debbie Reynolds and Eddie
Fisher as the (Jennifer Anniston & Brad Pitt) of their era.When you
add Elizabeth Taylor (the Angelina Jolie) of her time......it makes
some sense as she took Eddie Fisher from the homebody Debbie.
Move along several years.Carrie has a daughter named Billie.Billie is
interested in Rhys,the grandson of Elizabeth Taylor,by her only
daughter Liza Todd (also the child of Mike Todd).Carrie nixes the
interest by stating they are related by scandal,and draws a most
interesting diagram on pages 36-37 to further prove this.
Carrie doesn't write aboutanything,including her own serious illness without a bit of humor thrown in.Although we know anyone,who has a
series of shock treatment,is suffering from a severe depresion.Carrie
continues to keep her book upbeat.
I think humor is is her way of coping.She has reached the age of 53,
adopting this method of coping.Not a bad idea if you find yourself
raised in Hollywood.I give her credit for not whining about her childhood,
and learning to laugh at the pretentiousness of the system she found
herself dwelling in.
She discovered early,humor,when you have no control over your life,
can surely save you.
For sheer entertainment,I gave her 5 stars.
p.s. There are a number of good photoes in this book.Too bad they are
not in color.
Book Review: Life as anecdote
Summary: 3 Stars
I would love to be able to give this book four or five stars, as I think Carrie Fisher is hilarious, and I've been a fan since I was an eight-year old watching Star Wars in 1977.
But it seems that her one-woman show, the source material for this book, loses a lot when it's put onto paper. I haven't seen the show, but I have heard her on the radio several times and she's a great interview. You can dig into the NPR archives to listen.
On stage, this material could become a whole performance. But pain transmuted into mere anecdote loses a lot in translation, without voice, expression and body language to support the story.
Fisher remains detached from her own memoir, partly a result of growing up so publicly in the ultimate dysfunctional Hollywood family, and now she says also due to her ECT treatments for her manic depression. For example, she's funny when she talks about being in Star Wars, and how it's taken over her identity, but she doesn't really share what the experience was like, as a nineteen-year old daughter of Hollywood finding herself (almost certainly unexpectedly) in the biggest movie of all time.
Fisher is a talented writer and performer, and I wish her all the best. I enjoyed Wishful Drinking, but ironically it feels like some of Fisher's biggest fans might be the most disappointed by the distancing effect of her humor. On the other hand, I have not read her novels, and fans of that work might be gratified to see Fisher finally telling her story as memoir rather than thinly disguised roman a clef.
Book Review: Will Electroshock make me forget I read this?
Summary: 2 Stars
Ever go to a party or business lunch and there's always one person who monopolizes the conversation with stories that he/she builds up to be so great but just peter out; or that person who always has to have the last word and the word is always a "zinger"? You know how that person is amusing for the first few minutes then becomes incredibly tedious? Well, that's Carrie Fisher in this book. She's fifty two years old and still rehashing, retelling, and dwelling on these tired events that happened, not years, but decades ago. Her parents got divorced when she was four -- you'd think she'd be over it by now. She was part of one of the most successful film franchises in history -- and she's still complaining that George Lucas made her wear the Princess Leia ear buns. She grew up around wealth and movie stars. You would think she'd have embraced her good fortune. She got to be an actress because of her parent's connections then got published because she was an actress with a following. Yet she found reasons to be miserable. It's almost as though she liked being depressed, drunk and drug addicted because it gave her something to do and drone on about. This book is actually the hard copy of her one-woman show, which means she gets up every night and talks about all the stuff that made her so unhappy that she went for electroshock therapy to forget it. My head is spinning. If she really wanted to feel better, she'd stop living in the past and start living what's left of her life. But reading this book will certainly make you feel better about your own.