Ali Wentworth’s Ali in Wonderland is an uproariously funny memoir of the author’s life thus far from dinners with Henry Kissinger and Donald Rumsfeld to L.A. comedy with Lisa Kudrow and Jim Carey to falling in love with George Stephanopoulous. Every page made me laugh. Wentworth’s book is perfect for book clubs as you’ll want to talk about her outrageous tales. The star of the memoir really is not Wentworth but Muffie, her WASP-ish mother, who stole my heart and had me clutching my sides.
Heather Donahue soared to fame as the girl in The Blair Witch Project, but much of that fame was unwanted. In her memoir Grow Girl, Donahue spends a year growing medical marijuana in Northern California and ends up finding herself in the process. Donahue’s voice is fresh and distinctive and full of clever wit; yet, I found it difficult to discern between what was real and what was acting.
In Crazy Enough, the new memoir from singer and songwriter Storm Large (yes, that is her real name), the author gives us a strangely disturbing yet fascinating, no-holds-barred look at mental illness and how generations of a family are affected by it. I was horrified by the care Large’s mother received in the 1970s and 80s. As far as treating mental illness goes, the medical profession has come a long way. Some of Large’s actions, though, especially in her younger days, horrified me until I realized they were really a cry for help. She craved love and often substituted sex and drugs to fill the empty space to often disastrous consequences.
All three books were Advance Readers’ Copies.
Bookmagnet's Blog 