For November, I decided to be a bit gimmicky and dub the month "Nonfiction November." However, I ended up only reading memoirs so really it should have been "Memoir November," but, that's not as catchy!
I was surprised by how few books I read this month. Apparently, I read nonfiction a lot slower than I read fiction. All of these memoirs are less than 300 pages long and revolve around the entertainment world. Enjoy!
Wishful Drinking
By: Carrie Fisher
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 5/5
I didn't care much about Carrie Fisher until she died in 2016. I remember I was out of town for Christmas when I heard on the news that she had died. I ran around the house looking for someone who cared, but no one did. I wasn't really sure why I cared so much either, but she was Princess Leia! She had bounced back so many times before! She wasn't supposed to DIE!
The next day at the airport I bought her book that had just come out, The Princess Diarist, and read it the whole flight home. I don't think I looked up once. Then, when we landed and got in the car to drive home, we heard on the radio that her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds, had died too. That was too much. After that, I read every one of Carrie Fisher's memoirs, and Wishful Drinking is my favorite.
All of her books, but especially this one, are conversational in tone, hilarious, and filled with a lot of pictures. So basically, what I'm trying to say is that it's a fun and easy read. But, if you're interested and still don't have time to read it - she performs the book word for word on stage in an HBO special, so you can watch that instead.
The First Time: Finding Myself and Looking for Love on Reality TV
By: Colton Underwood
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3/5
For those of you who don't know, Colton Underwood was The Bachelor (like, the ABC show) last year. He was famous for 1) being a virgin and 2) hopping a fence and running away when he became overwhelmed one night. He cancelled the season with three girls left because he was dead set on Cassie Randolph. But Cassie wasn't ready for marriage so they decided to take it one day at a time. He also got Covid earlier this year after taking Cassie to the hospital for an allergic reaction to a stingray sting. Aren't you happy you know all that now?
Originally I was going to wait until February to read this for Valentine's Day...but then Cassie and Colton broke up and Cassie put out a restraining order against him (it's since been lifted)! That didn't scream "Valentine's Day" to me, so I decided to read it now.
I have been watching The Bachelor/Bachelorette for ten years now (congratulate me?), and this is the only tell-all I felt the need to read. I'm not really sure why I felt the need to read it because I didn't particularly like Colton (he's no Ben Higgins, after all) and I definitely didn't like him after reading this book. He claims to be fumbling through life with a good heart, but it did not appear that way to me and there were several instances that made me not like him. For example, one night on the show Cassie was literally throwing up and her producer came to tell Colton that Cassie would not be joining him for dinner. And Colton was like, no screw that, I want to kiss her. So he made Cassie get all cute and sit in front of cameras and have a date with him while leaving to go throw up every few minutes. What!? If you really wanted to spend time with her, why didn't you go sit with her in the bathroom back in her hotel room without cameras, Mr. Colton?
He claims he always tells the truth, but some of his actions seemed a bit shady to me and there were a few minor discrepancies. For example, at one moment he said that he tried all the dating apps and later he said he had never tried a dating app.
The book itself is written decently well and gives a lot of insight into both the world of NFL football (I actually found this to be the most interesting part of the book. The life of an NFL player is brutal!) and The Bachelor/Bachelorette. But man did it make me not like Colton!!
I am Spartacus!: Making a Film, Breaking the Blacklist
By: Kirk Douglas
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 5/5
This books is excellent. I had to read a chapter of it for a 1960s film class a couple of months ago and I was so excited to finally finish it. Although this book is primarily about the making of the famous epic Spartacus, it also touches heavily on the political atmosphere at the time and how the Black List affected different people. It's a rather short and simple book, but it covers a lot of important topics and even sometimes has a bit of humor. 80-something-year-old Kirk Douglas interjects to discuss how he would have handled situations differently if he were to experience them now. I highly recommend it for anyone who loves history, old Hollywood, or the movie Spartacus.
Why Not Me?
By: Mindy Kaling
Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3/5*
I have no connection to Mindy Kaling. I haven't seen The Office enough to know anything about her and I have never seen The Mindy Project. But her books always seem to be on best selling shelves in book stores so I decided to give one a shot.
It's cute. I don't think it's changed my life or inspired me to learn everything about her, but it is a fun read. She is incredibly relatable and down to earth but she jokes around so much that I'm not sure I actually learned anything real about her.
*Full disclosure, I haven't finished this book yet.