Friday, January 13, 2017

Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher

The bestselling author of Postcards from the Edge comes clean (well, sort of) in her first-ever memoir, adapted from her one-woman Broadway hit show. Fisher reveals what it was really like to grow up a product of “Hollywood in-breeding,” come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, and become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen.

Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, Wishful Drinking is Fisher, looking at her life as she best remembers it (what do you expect after electroshock therapy?). It’s an incredible tale: the child of Hollywood royalty—Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher—homewrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, marrying (then divorcing, then dating) Paul Simon, having her likeness merchandized on everything from Princess Leia shampoo to PEZ dispensers, learning the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed. 

Wishful Drinking, the show, has been a runaway success. Entertainment Weekly declared it “drolly hysterical” and the Los Angeles Times called it a “Beverly Hills yard sale of juicy anecdotes.” This is Carrie Fisher at her best—revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story of her bizarre reality with her inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humor.



Rating: 4/5 stars



You know what’s funny about death? I mean other than absolutely nothing at all?


This was a really fun autobiography! I had come across this book on BookDepository over a year ago and was immediately taken by that humorous cover. For some dumb reason I had been reluctant to buy it because I had recently discovered the wonder that was Carrie Fisher (not Princess Leia, I knew her, I’m not that lost) and was afraid that she wouldn’t be as funny in her book as she was in her interviews.

Lucky for me, I was wrong.

I can’t really find a proper way to review this book because… really, how can I? So I’m going to show you some of my favorite quotes:

”Oh my God! I thought about you every day from when I was twelve to when I was twenty two.”
Instead of asking what happened at twenty two, I said, “Every day?”
He shrugged and said, “Well, four times a day.”

Welcome to the land of too much information.



I have to start by telling you that my entire existence could be summed up in one phrase. And that is: If my life wasn’t funny it would just be true, and that is unacceptable.



My mother, who incidentally lives next door to me, she calls me to this day and says “Hello, dear, this is your mother, Debbie.” (As opposed to my mother Vladimir or Jean-Jaques.)


You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously.



And my favorite thing this woman said to me was, “I’m so sorry we had to meet under these conditions.”
Hello!? You’re a grief counselor! What other conditions would we meet under?
Then she says, “I can’t even imagine what you’ve been through.”
You can’t!? Well if you can’t then I’m really fucked.


I have to admit it was sad to read about some of the things she wanted to do or was hoping that would happen before she died, and that we now know won’t happen. It was a bitter sweet read, but I fully recommend it!

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