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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
3.5
What a sad, lonely, but interesting life for such a wonderful actor.
What a sad, lonely, but interesting life for such a wonderful actor.
sad
slow-paced
I felt so uninspired by In Pieces. Even when it came time to create the photo for this review. Nothing felt right because I just didn't connect to this book in any way. That's not to say that Sally Field hasn't had a rough life. There are definitely experiences that she never should have gone through, both in childhood and as an adult. But I just couldn't bring myself to feel any emotion besides boredom with this book.
Actually, I did feel an emotion...anger. Anger at Sally's mother. Especially when she admitted that she knew about the abuse Sally faced as a child. My jaw literally dropped. Yet at the same time I know it was just part of a cycle that had not yet been broken in that family.
While I didn't necessarily enjoy this book, I'm glad I didn't DNF it. I still learned a bit about Sally Field and that's ultimately what this book was about.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual violence
Ms. Field writes a deep self-analysis of her emotional life as it intersected with her personal relationships and her career. I am impressed with her efforts to understand herself and why she made the choices she has made. I’ve admired her work and enjoyed her performances through the years. I thank her now for sharing her complex life in a way to help her fans appreciate from where these sterling performances came from. Now, Ms. Field can add writing to her talents. Perhaps now she will try her hand at fiction, creating characters on the page.
Don’t expect this memoir to cover all of her movies, even the noted award-winning ones. She passes over Places in the Heart with one sentence (avoiding the fall-out over “you like me, you really like me” Oscar acceptance speech. However, after learning about her struggles to reconcile her doubts about her acting skills with her surprise at how the industry receives her performances, I better understand her honest comment).
I have often thought that Ms. Field’s career often mirrored the strange male-dominated professional media world. The best example was her role as Tom Hank’s love interest in Punchline and soon after playing Tom Hank’s mother. The men get to maintain their leading-man status as they age while older women actors are offered secondary characters or none at all. (Classic skin-crawling example is Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper’s Love in the Afternoon. IMDB describes Gary Cooper as middle-aged when he’s old enough to be Audrey Hepburn’s grandfather.) I was thrilled that Ms. Field played Mary Todd Lincoln. I hope we see her again, giving life to wise older female characters.
Don’t expect this memoir to cover all of her movies, even the noted award-winning ones. She passes over Places in the Heart with one sentence (avoiding the fall-out over “you like me, you really like me” Oscar acceptance speech. However, after learning about her struggles to reconcile her doubts about her acting skills with her surprise at how the industry receives her performances, I better understand her honest comment).
I have often thought that Ms. Field’s career often mirrored the strange male-dominated professional media world. The best example was her role as Tom Hank’s love interest in Punchline and soon after playing Tom Hank’s mother. The men get to maintain their leading-man status as they age while older women actors are offered secondary characters or none at all. (Classic skin-crawling example is Audrey Hepburn and Gary Cooper’s Love in the Afternoon. IMDB describes Gary Cooper as middle-aged when he’s old enough to be Audrey Hepburn’s grandfather.) I was thrilled that Ms. Field played Mary Todd Lincoln. I hope we see her again, giving life to wise older female characters.
I was surprised by how literary and reflective this was. Far more than just your average, “I’m just a regular person who got famous,” kind of book, this memoir is written with unflinching honesty, even when admitting difficult truths.
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
I thoroughly enjoyed this audiobook, which Sally herself narrates so well. I didn't have much knowledge of her life, other than a few movies I saw her in and now I'm compelled to watch Sybil again, since she won many accolades for that performance. Sally has a very eloquent and artistic way of presenting her story and my mind didn't waiver during it. I can only imagine what it would take to present yourself so unabashedly, so unapologetically, not only to write it all down, but then act it out loud for readers to listen. Wow.
If you want to read about Field’s work on films post Norma Rae, don’t look here.
This is mainly a focus on her childhood, which was full of abuse and sadness, and getting her career started, which she has a love/hate relationship with.
This book needed a better editor, but if Field wanted to have full control of her voice, she got it.
This is mainly a focus on her childhood, which was full of abuse and sadness, and getting her career started, which she has a love/hate relationship with.
This book needed a better editor, but if Field wanted to have full control of her voice, she got it.
Heartbreaking. She had a very interesting story and I definitely learned more about her and her journey.
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Contains child sexual abuse