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A review by seclement
Life In Pieces by Dawn O'Porter
2.0
I love Dawn O'Porters books. I have read most of them. I was quite excited to read this one, but I really should have looked more closely at what it was. It is a book about lockdown, but only the first few months. Most of it is written as diary entries. I cannot imagine a publisher deciding to publish this if it were by anyone else but a person who is already a celebrity. It is literally just her thoughts on a semi-daily basis over the first few months, written in a way that is meant to be relatable because she is in a bit of a shambles but it feels wildly out of touch. Remember those videos of Hollywood celebrities during the first few months of lockdown, where they were trying to be like "hey, we are in this together" but they were in their lush properties and actually completely out of touch? This was mostly a book like that. The fact that she also talks about lockdown as though it is past tense (the book ends in July) is also wildly out of touch, but probably more so a sign that she is in America where they have never even flattened the curve and "lockdowns" have meant that you can still go to Target but you have to wear a mask.
I struggled to rate this book because I do really like her work, and there are some bits in between the diary entries that are really good, and genuinely introspective. It's also difficult to rate because we are still in this, and it's not ending any time soon. There is a reason that historians don't go back and read diaries about events until long after they happen, and also a reason why very few diaries are ever published like this. If you have ever had a diary/journal and you wrote it in a really self-conscious way, like someone was going to read it, you will know how cringeworthy it is when you go back and read it. I don't blame Dawn O'Porter for wanting to write it, and there are genuinely funny moments, but it really doesn't strike the right balance between "I am such a mess like the rest of you!" and "I am really so caught up in my own life that I have completely lost sight of how out of touch and privileged I am". I kind of wish I hadn't read it now, as it feels so self-indulgent and I just don't know why such books are being published.
So....if you want to read a diary about someone hanging out in their LA home with their kids, pets, and famous spouse, drinking a lot and eating a lot of edibles, writing stuff but not enduring the Zoom/Teams/Extra work hell that a lot of us have had to deal with, then this might be the book for you. I think I am going to keep it on my shelf and re-visit it in a few years time to see if the book reads differently after we've all had some time to process all of this.
I struggled to rate this book because I do really like her work, and there are some bits in between the diary entries that are really good, and genuinely introspective. It's also difficult to rate because we are still in this, and it's not ending any time soon. There is a reason that historians don't go back and read diaries about events until long after they happen, and also a reason why very few diaries are ever published like this. If you have ever had a diary/journal and you wrote it in a really self-conscious way, like someone was going to read it, you will know how cringeworthy it is when you go back and read it. I don't blame Dawn O'Porter for wanting to write it, and there are genuinely funny moments, but it really doesn't strike the right balance between "I am such a mess like the rest of you!" and "I am really so caught up in my own life that I have completely lost sight of how out of touch and privileged I am". I kind of wish I hadn't read it now, as it feels so self-indulgent and I just don't know why such books are being published.
So....if you want to read a diary about someone hanging out in their LA home with their kids, pets, and famous spouse, drinking a lot and eating a lot of edibles, writing stuff but not enduring the Zoom/Teams/Extra work hell that a lot of us have had to deal with, then this might be the book for you. I think I am going to keep it on my shelf and re-visit it in a few years time to see if the book reads differently after we've all had some time to process all of this.