Reviews - Dying of Politeness

479 reviews for:

Dying of Politeness

Geena Davis

4.05 AVERAGE

calfrom5to7's review against another edition

4.0

emotional hopeful lighthearted medium-paced

siria's review against another edition

3.25

A breezy, amiable memoir from actor Geena Davis. You get a real sense of her voice here, and—perhaps oddly in a celebrity memoir?—the most engaging part of the book is when she is writing about her parents. Her love for them, New Englander quirks and all, clearly shines through. However, this is neither a salacious example of the genre (the biggest dirt you get about Davis' career is that Bills Murray and Hurt were assholes on set; this is my shocked face) nor particularly raw or deep. This reads like the book-length version of the kind of interview an actor does in the run-up to the release of a movie: carefully calculated with PR approval to be just the right kind of vulnerable, just enough quirky, just enough girl-next-door. Having read Dying of Politeness, I feel like I like Davis but don't know her at all—which may be just how she likes it.

lady_grey_with_honey's review

4.5

funny inspiring lighthearted fast-paced

I like Geena Davis, but I haven't seen all of her movies/TV shows, so I wasn't sure if I would be interested in her memoir or not. Well, she made me interested! I loved hearing about her life, all the ways she stumbled around on her road to success, her quirky parents (her impression of her mother's voice was worth reading the whole book, honestly), relationships, and where she decided to take her life after 40.