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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
funny
informative
inspiring
lighthearted
medium-paced
adventurous
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
inspiring
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
challenging
emotional
funny
informative
sad
fast-paced
Wilson writes about her past as a child actress and the challenges that she went through growing up into her early 20s. Instead of this being a series of events in chronological order, she writes each chapter as a vignette of a different aspect of her life- different subjects like losing her mother, her relationship to her sister, the movie Matilda, her OCD diagnosis and that can be a small period of time or span several years. I thought this was well written and reflective, and really dug into many of her internal feelings trying to navigate the world around her. Glad I picked it up, she also narrated the audio book nicely. Though she was a famous child star, many of these stories seem to reflect adolescence, and it felt somewhat relatable. Glad she was willing to share her story with us
Mara Wilson's debut memoir is a collection of well-written personal essays and I really enjoyed listening to it, but I didn't love love love it. Some of the essays were incredibly moving and interesting to me, but others had that problem that I have with a lot of memoirs and collections of personal essays where it seems like it was included to fill space. I just find myself reacting like, okay I guess that was pretty good, but why did it need to be written? Hasn't that been written about before?
But seriously, like 75% of the stories in here were great, and I'm very excited to see what kinds of things she does in the future. The best essays in here were the ones that only she could have written. The chapters where she comes to term with being a child star (and being the little girl who played Matilda specifically), or the chapter where she talks about her struggles with OCD were the highlights for me, but there's also stuff in here about how she quit Hollywood, the deaths of her mother and Robin Williams, and a chapter she calls "The Matilda Whore Complex" where she deals somewhat with her sexuality*. I really want to see that sexy play she wrote.
*Right before this book was published, she came out as bisexual, and if she'd been out while writing this, I think parts of this book would have been written a little differently. Particularly the bit where she says she's straight.
This is one of the better celebrity memoirs I've read, because Mara Wilson can actually write. She's a writer. In fact, this is almost not a celebrity memoir, if it didn't rely so heavily on, you know, her being a (former) celebrity. I'd also recommend the audio version. It's always better to hear these things in the author's own voice, especially if they're a performer.
But seriously, like 75% of the stories in here were great, and I'm very excited to see what kinds of things she does in the future. The best essays in here were the ones that only she could have written. The chapters where she comes to term with being a child star (and being the little girl who played Matilda specifically), or the chapter where she talks about her struggles with OCD were the highlights for me, but there's also stuff in here about how she quit Hollywood, the deaths of her mother and Robin Williams, and a chapter she calls "The Matilda Whore Complex" where she deals somewhat with her sexuality*. I really want to see that sexy play she wrote.
*Right before this book was published, she came out as bisexual, and if she'd been out while writing this, I think parts of this book would have been written a little differently. Particularly the bit where she says she's straight.
This is one of the better celebrity memoirs I've read, because Mara Wilson can actually write. She's a writer. In fact, this is almost not a celebrity memoir, if it didn't rely so heavily on, you know, her being a (former) celebrity. I'd also recommend the audio version. It's always better to hear these things in the author's own voice, especially if they're a performer.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
fast-paced
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
I really enjoyed Mara's book. She truly seems like a lovely person. I enjoyed her journey from young child as an actress, to an adolescent discovering herself and how difficulty life can be and as an adult. I appreciate her honesty with her struggles with OCD and her tales of the celebrities she acted with that we all also adore. Definitely worth the read!
emotional
funny
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced