Book Review: I’m Glad My Mom Died by: Jennette McCurdy

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Autobiography, Book, Book Blog, Book Blogger, Book Review, books, I'm Glad My Mom Died, Jennette McCurdy, Memoir, Non fiction

I take a longer look at the words on her headstone.
Brave, kind, loyal, sweet, loving, graceful, strong, thoughtful, funny, genuine, hopeful, playful, insightful, and on and on…
Was she, though? Was she any of those things? The words make me angry. I can’t look at them any longer.
Why do we romanticize the dead? Why can’t we be honest about them?

I’m Glad My Mom Died by: Jennette McCurdy

Initial Thoughts: When I was a kid, I loved watching iCarly. It was such a whimsical show full of fun pranks. Oh the 2010s, such a simpler time. I had known that after the series ended, Jennette McCurdy had stepped away from the limelight and decided not to feature in the reboot of iCarly. I wondered why, after all, the series looked like so much fun and Sam Puckett was a beloved character by many. Little did I know the dark reality that Jennette McCurdy faced while filming the series which eventually lead her to write this grim but insightful memoir that bears the jarring title “I’m Glad My Mom Died.” If there is any title that can provoke interest in the reader, it is that one.

Summary

A heartbreaking and hilarious memoir by iCarly and Sam & Cat star Jennette McCurdy about her struggles as a former child actor—including eating disorders, addiction, and a complicated relationship with her overbearing mother—and how she retook control of her life.

Jennette McCurdy was six years old when she had her first acting audition. Her mother’s dream was for her only daughter to become a star, and Jennette would do anything to make her mother happy. So she went along with what Mom called “calorie restriction,” eating little and weighing herself five times a day. She endured extensive at-home makeovers while Mom chided, “Your eyelashes are invisible, okay? You think Dakota Fanning doesn’t tint hers?” She was even showered by Mom until age sixteen while sharing her diaries, email, and all her income.

In I’m Glad My Mom Died, Jennette recounts all this in unflinching detail—just as she chronicles what happens when the dream finally comes true. Cast in a new Nickelodeon series called iCarly, she is thrust into fame. Though Mom is ecstatic, emailing fan club moderators and getting on a first-name basis with the paparazzi (“Hi Gale!”), Jennette is riddled with anxiety, shame, and self-loathing, which manifest into eating disorders, addiction, and a series of unhealthy relationships. These issues only get worse when, soon after taking the lead in the iCarly spinoff Sam & Cat alongside Ariana Grande, her mother dies of cancer. Finally, after discovering therapy and quitting acting, Jennette embarks on recovery and decides for the first time in her life what she really wants.

Told with refreshing candor and dark humor, I’m Glad My Mom Died is an inspiring story of resilience, independence, and the joy of shampooing your own hair.

The Review

Jennette McCurdy was a child actress who is known for her portrayal of Sam Puckett on the Nickelodeon television show iCarly, and later Sam & Cat. Everyone remembers her for her character’s snarky comments, tough nature and love of fried chicken. In reality, Jennette McCurdy was struggling to meet her mother’s rigorous demands from her weight (which spurred an eating disorder) to the tint of her eyelashes. For years, Jennette endured abused by her mother that took years of therapy to overcome.

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Book Review: Girl, Wash Your Face: Stop Believing the Lies About Who You Are So You Can Become Who You Were Meant to Be by: Rachel Hollis

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Autobiography, Book, Book Blog, Book Blogger, Book Review, books, review, Self help

You, and only you, are ultimately responsible for who you become and how happy you are.

Girl, Wash Your Face by: Rachel Hollis

Initial Thoughts: I saw this book on the recommended shelf at Indigo (a bookstore chain in Canada) so many times. I had no clue who Rachel Hollis was nor why she wanted girls to wash their face. Years later, I picked up the book because it has so many ratings on Goodreads and I didn’t want to miss out. I have serious FOMO when it comes to books. Later on, when I read a bit more about Rachel Hollis and the controversy it made her book loose its credibility in my eyes. Sure, there’s still “some” good advice here, but I would caution readers not to listen to all the advice in the book (especially about what Rachel has to say about relationships).

Summary

With wry wit and hard-earned wisdom, popular online personality and founder of TheChicSite.com founder Rachel Hollis helps readers break free from the lies keeping them from the joy-filled and exuberant life they are meant to have.

Founder of the lifestyle website TheChicSite.com and CEO of her own media company, Chic Media, Rachel Hollis has created an online fan base of hundreds of thousands of fans by sharing tips for living a better life while fearlessly revealing the messiness of her own. Now comes her highly anticipated first book featuring her signature combination of honesty, humor, and direct, no-nonsense advice.

Each chapter of Girl, Wash Your Face begins with a specific lie Hollis once believed that left her feeling overwhelmed, unworthy, or ready to give up. As a working mother, a former foster parent, and a woman who has dealt with insecurities about her body and relationships, she speaks with the insight and kindness of a BFF, helping women unpack the limiting mind-sets that destroy their self-confidence and keep them from moving forward.

From her temporary obsession with marrying Matt Damon to a daydream involving hypnotic iguanas to her son’s request that she buy a necklace to “be like the other moms,” Hollis holds nothing back. With unflinching faith and tenacity, Hollis spurs other women to live with passion and hustle and to awaken their slumbering goals.

The Review

Recently, when a friend asked me what I was currently reading, I responded that I was reading Rachel Hollis’ book Girl, Wash Your Face . In response, my friend told me that she doesn’t really read motivational books or self-help books because the writers tend to tell you things you already know. “Believe in yourself,” is not a new concept, but it is used all the time as if it were groundbreakingly new.

Rachel Hollis’ book is no different. I pretty much got the advice that I expected with the tough love attitude that Rachel Hollis is known for.

In Girl, Wash Your Face , each chapter is devoted to a lie that Hollis once believed that made her want to throw in the towel (but didn’t). Through her stories and struggles, she hopes that you too will get up and wash your face and work a little harder to achieve your goals. The stories range from relationships, to loosing weight, to parenting, and adoption.

Book Review: Songs My Mother Taught Me by: Marlon Brando & Robert Lindsey

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Acting, Actor, Autobiography, Biography, Book, Book Review, Brando, Celebrity, Cinema, film, Marlon, Marlon Brando, movies, review, Robert Lindsey, Songs My Mother Taught Me

I have decided to tell the story of my life as best I can, so that my children can separate the truth from the myths that others have created about me, as myths are created about everyone swept up in the turbulent and distorting maelstrom of celebrity in our culture” – Marlon Brando, Songs My Mother Taught Me

Initial Thoughts: After reading George Englund’s biography of Marlon Brando, Marlon Brando: The Way It’s Never Been Done Before, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Brando’s biography. Finally, I thought, I am going to hear Brando’s story as told by the man himself.
Songs My Mother Taught Me by Marlon Brando

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

 

The Review

I had developed a fascination with Marlon Brando after seeing him as Sky Masterson in Guys & Dolls. For me, and for the rest of the world, Brando was an iconic figure larger than life. To me, Brando is different from other celebrities because, in spite of his success, he would be the first one to shun Hollywood for its artificiality. 

Book Review: The Princess Diarist by: Carrie Fisher

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Autobiography, Biography, Book, Book Review, Carrie Fisher, Celebrity, non-fiction, review, The Princess Diarist

What expression did Madame Tussauds choose to embalm on my face? Impassive Leia/ me. Staring stoically into the future with Jabba the Hutt giggling peacefully behind me. Why shouldn’t he giggle? What’s he got to worry about? Surely not his weight. He’s big boned or no boned. He could do with some toning, but why bother? With impassive, sweaty-looking me as his slave and that annoying little rat in drag to amuse him, he’s got a great life. One that Leia and I hope/plan to put an end to very shortly” – The Princess Diarist, Carrie Fisher

Initial thoughts: When I was about four years old, my parents decided that it was a great time to expose me to Star Wars. I became a fanatic during my childhood. I even made my own Princess Leia costume (minus all the sewing). I even began wearing my hair in the Princess Leia style with the two cinnamon rolls attached to my head a month before Halloween… Oh, what was I thinking… But, I did not know the person behind Princess Leia. Carrie Fisher, to me, was just another actress. It was only, unfortunately, when she passed away that I became interested in finding out who Carrie Fisher was.

Summary 

When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved—plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a (sort-of) regular teenager.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time—and what developed behind the scenes. And today, as she reprises her most iconic role for the latest Star Wars trilogy, Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.” – Goodreads

The Review

So, as I had mentioned, I grew up as a Star Wars fan. I watched the movies so many (too many) times. Today, the latest Star Wars movie will be out in theatres, Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi. When I had seen The Force Awakens nearly two years ago. I remember at the end of the movie, I found myself gazing longingly at the ending credits. What! I will have to wait another two years! Noooooooo! Somehow, two years has flown by rather fast.

It is rare that I will become interested in an actor outside of their movie. I may enjoy an actor’s work, but I am not one to learn all about them and fill my head with the names of their favorite pets. When Carrie Fisher passed away, I remember reading a quote she had said in response to how much she had changed since she was in the initial Star Wars movies….

Please stop debating about whether or not I’ve aged well.  Unfortunately, it hurts all 3 of my feelings. Youth and beauty are not accomplishments. They are temporary, happy by-products of time and/or DNA. Don’t hold your breath for either. A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away, someone else might have given a ****” – Carrie Fisher, NBC Today Show, December 2015

After reading this, I was extremely happy to hear a celebrity addressing the masses that beauty doesn’t last. What drew me to Carrie Fisher was her honesty, which is found in abundance in her last book The Princess Diarist. 

The Princess Diarist is not about what it was like to be on the set of Star Wars. Instead, it is a coming-of-age autobiography with some journal excerpts about Carrie Fisher’s relationship with Harrison Ford. Believe it or not, Harrison Ford

Book Review: If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t) by: Betty White

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Autobiography, Betty White, Book, Book Review, Celebrity, Memoir, non-fiction, review

That’s when you have to remember that image in the mirror and not let success get to you. It is important that you not believe your own publicity. Be grateful for whatever praise you receive, but take it with a grain of salt” If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t) by: Betty White

Initial thoughts: Who doesn’t love Betty White? Honestly, whenever I see her appear in a movie or television series, I find myself grinning from ear to ear. For decades she has been sharing her acting talents with the world. Even now, at her age, she is still going strong. I ended up listening to the audiobook version of Betty White’s autobiography If You Ask Me (And of Course You Won’t).

Summary

Drawing from a lifetime of lessons learned, seven-time Emmy winner Betty White’s wit and wisdom take center stage as she tackles topics like friendship, romantic love, aging, television, fans, love for animals, and the brave new world of celebrity. If You Ask Me mixes her thoughtful observations with humorous stories from a seven- decade career in Hollywood” Goodreads

 

The Review

This book was an absolute delight to read. I adored every minute of it. Unlike most celebrities who have an ego higher than the Empire State Building, Betty White is a down-to-earth lovable woman who I wish could be immortal. Wouldn’t this be awesome to have an immortal Betty White to grace the silver screen forever and ever and