Title: Wishful Drinking
Author: Carrie Fisher
Rating Out of 5: 4 (Really good read!)
My Bookshelves: Biographies, Comedy
Pace: Fast
Format: Novel
Publisher: Pocket Books
Year: 2008
5th sentence, 74th page: I mean, I could end up being financially independent… and Liza Minelli – but you take the good with the bad.

Finally, Carrie Fisher comes clean (well, sort of) with the crazy truth that is her life. Intimate, hilarious, and sobering, it is an incredible tale. She reveals what it was like to be the child of Hollywood royalty – Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher – home-wrecked by Elizabeth Taylor, come of age on the set of a little movie called Star Wars, become a cultural icon and bestselling action figure at the age of nineteen, marry (then divorce, then date) Paul Simon, learn the father of her daughter forgot to tell her he was gay, and write four hit novels.

But it isn’t all sweetness and light sabres. Battling addiction and weathering the wild ride of manic depression, this is Carrie Fisher at her best – revealing her worst. She tells her true and outrageous story with inimitable wit, unabashed self-deprecation, and buoyant, infectious humour.

I grew up watching Star Wars and Carrie Fisher. So it was really interesting gaining a bit of insight into her life and what it was like to grow up as the child of two incredibly famous and prominent Hollywood legends. Ones that had their very private lives splashed across the front pages. I actually wasn’t even aware of her very, very famous parents, because apparently I live under a rock. So really, this entire journey came as a surprise to me.

Although Fisher has had her battles with mental health and wellbeing, she writes about it with this amazing humour. In some cases it’s quite a dark sense of humour, but I really enjoyed that. And then felt like I was probably a little dark too. Especially when one of the first chapters outlined how a man had died in her bed. Yes, it is sad, but the way she told it… not so sad, more like a very, very interesting anecdote.

The only complaint I have about this book is that it was way too short. One of my many impulse buys, I had no idea what to expect and what I received was quite a small, short paperback. Actually, the name pocket book (the publishing group) fitted this absolutely perfectly. I could easily have slid this into my coat pocket and read it while out for tea, ignoring the boys talking about their cars… that is, if I hadn’t have finished it so quickly…

Image source: Simon & Schuster