2.75 stars
I had so many feelings reading this book. I've always loved Princess Leia as a character, and admired the way Carrie Fisher worked to overcome her addiction (regardless of the circumstances surrounding her death) and manage her bipolar disorder. I really wanted to love this. The book is marketed as a kind of behind-the-scenes of Carrie's experience shooting the first Star Wars movie. In reality, it focuses almost entirely on her affair with Harrison Ford that apparently occurred in the three months they spent shooting A New Hope. She also briefly explores how playing Princess Leia shaped the rest of her life.

She is at times self-deprecating and candid, and at other times defensive and somewhat misleading. There are passages where she will recount something someone said or a conversation she had and then she follows it up by saying something like, "He could've said that. He didn't, but he could've." This happens a few times. It felt like she was trying to be humorous, but it just didn't quite work for me.

At the end of the section describing her 'relationship' with Ford, there are 68 pages (not all full pages, some are just a sentence or two) of her actual journal writings from that time. This was one of the more uncomfortable parts of the book. I know that she chose to publish them, but it felt very strange to literally read someone's diary. The entries reveal her obsessions, hopes, and fears in a mostly rambling, sometimes erratic-bordering-on-manic manner. It honestly made me sad, especially in hindsight. The following quotes come from those journal entries:

"I am the only one who can come to my rescue. I am the only one who can help me now. But I don't know how to help myself. It must follow then that I don't want to help myself."

"I would like to not be able to hear myself think. I constantly hear my mind chattering and jabbering away up there all by itself. I wish it would give me a fucking break."

"If anyone reads this when I have passed to the big bad beyond I shall be posthumorously (yes, this is the word she used...no, it's not actually a word) embarrassed. I shall spend my entire afterlife blushing."

"I call people sometimes hoping not only that they'll verify the fact that I'm alive but that they'll also, however indirectly, convince me that being alive is an appropriate state for me to be in. Because sometimes I don't think it's such a bright idea. Is it worth the trouble it takes trying to live life so that someday you get something worthwhile out of it, instead of it almost taking worthwhile things out of you?"

I don't know about anyone else, but I really felt for the 19-year old who seemed to feel so lost, and it's too bad that she wasn't able to get help before the point where she began using drugs as a way to cope.

Unfortunately, I had a little trouble in some parts of the narrative. Fisher would be talking about one event, then would go on a tangent and start talking about something else before actually finishing her original story. It came off as a little rambling for me.

In her writing about her relationship with Ford, she is incredibly vague. Now, I don't need or want to hear all of the intimate details, but there are essentially no details at all. Basically, this is the story:

They met on set and she was twitterpated about him. He made her nervous and she couldn't really talk to him. One night at a party she gets drunk and goes home with him. They don't talk about their relationship, EVER. Actually, according to her they don't talk much at all. She becomes obsessed with him (those are her words, and it's also obvious in her journal entries) and three months later the movie wraps and their affair ends...we get one story about them going out for a drink and her doing an impression of him and then him getting upset when he learns that she has only been in one relationship prior to their hookup...that's it. And it's 58 pages long...129 pages if you include the diary entries.

Now, I wouldn't have a problem with the length of the story if I felt like I learned anything or if it was entertaining...but I didn't and it wasn't. I think most people see Harrison Ford as a rather quiet, introverted guy. Reading about how they spent their weekends hooking up with pretty much no feeling behind it was not a fun or entertaining read.


Also, there is a section at the end of the book talking about her experiences with fans. She attributes these long, rambling, fanatic quotes to anonymous fans. At the end of it she says that she loves her fans and admires them, but her tone as she's relaying these stories comes of a little mocking.

I'm not sure if these were based on actual fans she met or if she was just exaggerating the quotes for entertainment value, but as someone who has a tendency to fangirl (not to the extent that she claims happens in the book, but still...) I found it a little disconcerting. I do think it would be frustrating to be approached by people all the time expecting you to BE the character you portrayed over 40 years ago, but at the same time, she chose to do these 'celebrity lap dances' as she calls the act of getting paid for autographs and pictures.

All in all, I found this book more than a little heartbreaking, especially considering her passing so shortly after the book's release. I wanted to love it. Unfortunately, I didn't think it was very well-written. What was supposed to be witty more often than not came off as rambling and a little self-important. And what I was expecting (a book chronicling her experience making Star Wars) became more about her airing her dirty laundry and I just wasn't a fan.