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A review by tjlcody
No Ordinary Life by Suzanne Redfearn
4.0
In the process of reading.
I'm on page 71, and I have a prediction to make:
I feel like this book is being set up as "let's talk about the evils of Hollywood and show-business and child-acting".
And I have a feeling that that's going to be the endgame-message here, rather than "maybe parents need to be a bit more cautious about the things they choose to allow their young children to be involved in, by doing research and asking questions and demanding to be kept in the loop instead of strictly trusting the people around you to know what they're doing. And taking responsibility for themselves and their choices when things go poorly instead of scapegoating everyone and everything else."
IDK, it's just a feeling I'm getting.
Maybe the book will surprise me.
[FINISHED]
*Throws my hands to the sky*
PRAISE JESUS HALLELUJAH, THE BOOK SURPRISED ME.
Faye dug herself into a lot of holes in this story, and to be perfectly frank, my sympathy for her was limited.
And there's the fact that Faye apparently didn't "feel as bad as she should have" about painting a man as a sexual predator and pedophile, when it turns out that he wasn't doing anything of the sort, and was genuinely trying to help the girls make a name for themselves in Hollywood. Like... Wow, Faye, I feel like you should maybe feel a bit worse, since your own life was almost destroyed by untrue accusations?? Pot?? Kettle?? You're such a hypocrite??
The constant preaching about the evils of Hollywood and how it destroyed children was annoying too... But only for a bit, thank God.
It was to my great relief that I read the author's note in the back and read that the author was not attempting to generalize all child stars (she even says straight up that many child stars have and are thriving now in spite of and because of their time as child stars), and was trying to paint a picture of a woman who gets carried away and lets her kid's fame go to her head; in short, not all kids go off the deep-end from being stars, not all parents allow them to go off the deep-end from being stars, and no, Hollywood is not necessarily filled with sexual predators waiting to take advantage.
(That was a nice subversion by the way, Mitten ending up to be an honest guy. I appreciated that.)
Which was a very nice clarification, because it takes away my uneasy sense of "is this person legit trying to blame Hollywood for stage moms' crappy parenting decisions?" Because to be frank, as far as real-life decisions go, I really think that's all it is: As the author said, a lot of child stars ARE thriving and had pretty good childhoods, and I think that's a lot to do with their legal guardians taking steps to make sure they never went off the deep-end. They were probably the ones putting their foot down and saying "No, my child has worked the limit allowed by the laws today, he's going home and doing his homework now."
Usually I regret reading the author's notes, but I'm glad I kept read with this one.
I'm on page 71, and I have a prediction to make:
I feel like this book is being set up as "let's talk about the evils of Hollywood and show-business and child-acting".
And I have a feeling that that's going to be the endgame-message here, rather than "maybe parents need to be a bit more cautious about the things they choose to allow their young children to be involved in, by doing research and asking questions and demanding to be kept in the loop instead of strictly trusting the people around you to know what they're doing. And taking responsibility for themselves and their choices when things go poorly instead of scapegoating everyone and everything else."
IDK, it's just a feeling I'm getting.
Maybe the book will surprise me.
[FINISHED]
*Throws my hands to the sky*
PRAISE JESUS HALLELUJAH, THE BOOK SURPRISED ME.
Spoiler
Faye I found to be pretty irritating at a lot of points- I mean, seriously, the red flag should have been around the time they were asking you to lie to subvert child labor laws, which are literally in place to protect children from the kinds of things Molly was being put through.Faye dug herself into a lot of holes in this story, and to be perfectly frank, my sympathy for her was limited.
Spoiler
Lying to the emergency room staff was complete crap: Doctors are bound by law not to share medical information with anyone. They could lose their careers if they breach the confidentiality agreement. And lying to the doctors about how your kid got hurt, especially when it's clear they KNOW you're lying, is pretty much the numero uno way to get a visit from CPS.And there's the fact that Faye apparently didn't "feel as bad as she should have" about painting a man as a sexual predator and pedophile, when it turns out that he wasn't doing anything of the sort, and was genuinely trying to help the girls make a name for themselves in Hollywood. Like... Wow, Faye, I feel like you should maybe feel a bit worse, since your own life was almost destroyed by untrue accusations?? Pot?? Kettle?? You're such a hypocrite??
The constant preaching about the evils of Hollywood and how it destroyed children was annoying too... But only for a bit, thank God.
It was to my great relief that I read the author's note in the back and read that the author was not attempting to generalize all child stars (she even says straight up that many child stars have and are thriving now in spite of and because of their time as child stars), and was trying to paint a picture of a woman who gets carried away and lets her kid's fame go to her head; in short, not all kids go off the deep-end from being stars, not all parents allow them to go off the deep-end from being stars, and no, Hollywood is not necessarily filled with sexual predators waiting to take advantage.
(That was a nice subversion by the way, Mitten ending up to be an honest guy. I appreciated that.)
Which was a very nice clarification, because it takes away my uneasy sense of "is this person legit trying to blame Hollywood for stage moms' crappy parenting decisions?" Because to be frank, as far as real-life decisions go, I really think that's all it is: As the author said, a lot of child stars ARE thriving and had pretty good childhoods, and I think that's a lot to do with their legal guardians taking steps to make sure they never went off the deep-end. They were probably the ones putting their foot down and saying "No, my child has worked the limit allowed by the laws today, he's going home and doing his homework now."
Usually I regret reading the author's notes, but I'm glad I kept read with this one.