Carrie Fisher: Princess, Rebel and Brave Comic Voice Review

As a fan of Carrie Fisher since childhood, I was excited to read this book, because Fisher had led an extremely interesting life and had an awesome sense of humor. As I read, however, I found myself wholeheartedly disappointed.

If you have a subscription to the New York Times, you have probably already read this book, or at least most of it. The book consists only of articles on Fisher published by The New York Times between July 13, 1977, and January 5, 2017.

I was not impressed. There was no transition between the articles. The articles were in order from from most recently published to least recently, and as the articles became more and more spread apart, this left the story feeling more and more disjointed. As the story was merely the articles of many different people, there were several different voices and opinions of the same person, and no voice ever leaves you with a feeling of clarity.

The biggest downfall, however, was that the story didn’t attempt to tie the stories and time frames together. You as the reader merely see many different variances of Carrie Fisher through the eyes of several very different people.

Don’t get me wrong. The articles were great on their own, each well-written and poignant, but they lacked a solid fluidity of voice, idea, or pace altogether. I love Carrie Fisher, and I love to to read, but this book just isn’t worth the $2.99 price tag.

Published by the New York Times at the end March 2017 via the Nook and Kindle stores, this book, surprisingly, had few reviews or ratings. To be more specific, there were no customer reviews on the book in the Nook store, and only one customer review available in the Kindle store. The reviewer did not leave their name, but Amazon verified that they had purchased the book before giving it a rating of five out of five stars and a brief comment, saying “Very interesting series of articles made into a book.” In fact, this is the only review I was able to find on any sight: the book just wasn’t something to write home about.

The Kindle store advertises the book briefly, stating, “This TBook — featuring a selection of stories, reviews and interviews from The New York Times archives — chronicles the life of Carrie Fisher, who died on Dec. 27, 2016, in Los Angeles at age 60 following a heart attack.”

If you want to remember Carrie Fisher or get to know her a little more personally, read her books. Carrie Fisher wrote several books before her death, and not only are they refreshingly blunt about life as a celebrity and life with mental illness, they are also well-written and funny, unlike this memoir by the New York Times.

Review by Katelyn Boring.