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3.73 AVERAGE


Читала вже декілька біографій і все ж жанр автобіографії для мене найбільш комфортний, адже чим чистіший саме авторський текст без сторонньої допомоги – тим проникливіші слова.

Дякую всім тим, хто вмовив місс Гепберн дописати цю книжку. Нехай в більшості це просто збірка різноманітних спогадів з життя акторки, мені сподобалося слухати їх. Мені було цікаво познайомитись з нею як людиною, її голосом, її почуттями.

Les dernières pages sont tristement belles... j'en chiale.
Il est déjà 4h du matin... je devrais aller dormir mais je n'ai pas du tout envie de passer à autre chose.
emotional funny informative inspiring medium-paced
informative medium-paced
informative fast-paced

Still doing handstands man.
lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Interesting but rambling. 

I loved reading about Katherine Hepburn's life in her own words, like to a ridiculous degree. In my opinion, even the rambling nature of her book seems natural and more like you're talking to your crazy great aunt than actually disorganized. The only place where the book falters is when she starts talking about Spencer Tracy.

Pretty much any time she mentioned him, the narrative immediately shifted from No-Nonsense Kate to dreamy, sentimental, starry-eyed and grieving Kate. Her thoughts got more and more abstract and disjointed, she seemed not to know how to say what she really meant, and the only thing about Spencer Tracy she wrote that had any kind of coherence to it was the heartbreaking part where she was explaining how she reacted when he died. It was such a dissonant break from the rest of her book that I knocked off a whole star from what would otherwise have been a four-star read.

I understand why, of course. I'm not sure I could talk succinctly about the tragedy and romance of the only man I ever truly loved and our relationship, particularly if the story was as heartbreaking and scandal-filled as theirs. I was just hoping for a more streamlined and cohesive story (chapter?) about the two of them. A bit rambling, maybe, but not the disjointed mess that the Spencer chapters jumbled themselves into.

If it wasn't by Katherine Hepburn, I would have put this book down a long time ago. Her stories are rambling and tangential, but I appreciated her perspective on the events of her life. For me, the book was worth it for the last portion of the book where she finally talked about Spencer Tracy, their relationship, and the loss she suffered.

The first half or so of this book was very interesting. Katharine Hepburn reads it herself in her distinctive voice and tells about her childhood and beginning career. The book is in fairly random order going back and forth when she remembers to tell a story about something. After a while though, she just rambles on and on, recounting entire conversations word for word, telling completely irrelevant stories like the time she stopped to help someone change a flat tire, had to flag down a truck to help them and the truck driver thought she looked like Katharine Hepburn and was just flabbergasted that it was indeed she. The end gets super rambly, with a soliloquy to Spencer Tracy about clearing out their home after his death. And one more time to say, as numerously done throughout the book, she says "I was lucky."

Finally finished! I really, really wanted to like this, because I really like Katharine Hepburn. And the beginning part of it was interesting--her family and growing up, getting started, etc.--and, of course, it's her reflecting back on it much, much later. But a lot of the rest was boring and/or disjointed. Some seemed like she was dictating--kind of conversational/stream of consciousness. Then there were some downright weird parts, like the chapter she wrote about one of her trips with a director "friend" (?) like it was a play, or the one about her needing eye surgery that's like a phone conversation, but you only hear her side of it. And, overall, I don't feel like, other than her early years, I really got to know that much about her. I'll be interested to read a more conventional biography of Hepburn to see how it compares.