Goodreads Mobile | see what your friends are reading

Jul 26, 2011

Alex rated it:

I have a mildly sick fascination with the Phillips family. I read both "Papa John" and "California Dreamin' " back when they came out and it didn't take much to get me in line for Mac's book. Not sure why. I am not the age to be an original fan of either the Mamas and the Papas or "One Day at A Time" (et al). I guess I would lump this more under my fascination with dysfunctional families, particularly show biz ones. So... it would have taken more willpower than I ha More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Mar 04, 2010

Mary rated it:

Wow. This memoir was hard to read and hard to put down. Whatever may be going on in Ms. Phillips's life at the moment, or whatever may have motivated her to write this, I really felt like she was trying very hard to be truthful. I grew up during the same era and though my life wasn't the least bit like hers, some of her experiences and feelings really resonated with me. I wish her all the best in her recovery and hope that she can stay sober.

ETA: I've read a couple of GR reviews that More...

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Feb 01, 2011

Jeannie rated it:

I just finished this book with tears in my eyes and a big "Wow" in my head. Mackenzie Phillips life story is one of the bravest and most interesting memoirs I've ever had the honor to read. Truly inspiring, she is one amazing woman, there is no "poor, little pitiful me" anywhere in her book, it's told with such amazing candor that it almost leaves me speechless. I'm not sure how to word all this but I know I came away with a deeper understanding of addiction and even learned More...

7 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 23, 2012

Brooke rated it:

A little background: Mackenzie's dad was John Phillips - a great genius in the world of music, but a TERRIBLE father. He was a prolific drug user, and had absolutely no boundaries when it came to pleasure seeking. He wasn't going to let a little thing like worrying about his children get in the way of a good high. He gave Mackenzie a lot of drugs. He taught her how to shoot cocaine. He also didn't let a thing like a blood relationship with his daughter get in the way of sexual pleasure.

More...

0 comments like

Mar 23, 2011

Nikki rated it:

As someone who is currently writing a memoir, I was very inspired by this book. I thoroughly appreciated the honesty behind the words. Admittedly, I am too young to remember when Mackenzie Phillips was at the height of her fame, but she puts enough detail into the text for those less familiar with her famous father and certainly far from traditional upbringing. I commend her for coming forward with her story. She frankly discusses the reality of being a drug addict as well as an abuse surviv More...

0 comments like

Aug 11, 2010

Cristy rated it:

Phillips opens the book by exploring the contrast between her 'normal' life with her mother and the 'rock' lifestyle of her father. Unfortunately, her mother fell into an abusive relationship, eliminating any possibility Phillips wouldn't grow up to become a rockstar kid stereotype.

Not to say Phillips isn't sympathetic; she is. She doesn't glorify her addiction and self-destruction like other sober folk, but she does come across as little too forgiving of her father's violation. In f More...

0 comments like

Feb 02, 2010

Julie rated it:

I'm a sucker for celebrity biographies and memoirs, but wasn't prepared for the raw sucker punch of Mackenzie Phillip's story. Frankly, I'm not sure how she isn't dead yet after reading page after page of the drug abuse, violence, and neglect that shaped her life. From the blackouts during which she slept with her father to her firing from One Day At A Time, her drug habit ruled her -- mind, body, and soul.

High On Arrival begins in her childhood, when she would be unsupervised in her More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 22, 2010

Kay added it

There is no way I could rank this book with stars. It was a horrible- sickening- tragic book to read. I would read one chapter and feel physically sick and lay it down to come back to it in a few minutes. If only 1/3 of this book is true, it still will make for one of the worst childhoods around. I always liked the Mamas and Papas and loved their music so even though I was never a Mackenzie Phillip's fan I wanted to read it.
If there is a group out there for sterilization, they need to m More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 29, 2009

David rated it:

Second (to Valerie Bertinelli) in my tour of the "one day at a time" alumnae memoir series. I'm not usually a fan of drunk-a-logues, and the book does spend a tremendous amount of time on the details of her decades of drug addiction, relationships with married men, irresponsibility at work, and so on, but it was actually sort of a compelling read.

I think one feature that makes the book different is that she's not necessarily well yet. Apparently had a long period of abs More...

0 comments like

Nov 17, 2009

Nicola rated it:

Reason for Reading: I enjoy reading celebrity memoirs and was a big fan of One Day at a Time when the show was on. I had read Valerie Bertinelli's recent memoir and knowing Mackenzie Philips' checkered past figured she would have a very interesting memoir.

Comments: Mackenzie Phillips is the daughter of John Phillips (the mastermind of the famous singing group The Mamas & The Papas) and is best known for her role as Julie Cooper on One Day at a Time. In this book Mack tells her own st More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 15, 2009

Noreen rated it:

Mackenzie Phillips is not a writer. The craft in this book is a mess. Yet she did have a point of view--that of an addict who isn't fully recovered. There aren't enough time indicators and none of these people are likable. The closest one I could like was Michelle Phillips. She raised her daughter sanely against the odds. Michelle tried to be a stabilizing force. Michelle couldn't fix any of this. Child Protective Services needed to get involved and why didn't they? Celebrity culture is disgusti More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 30, 2010

Patricia rated it:

Just when I might start thinking that I'm a bad parent or spouse, something like this book comes along to put a different perspective on things. Normally, if I give a book four stars, it means I recommend the book. Three stars would mean I like it but don't necessarily recommend it. I've debated back and forth what to give this book. I'm not sure I feel comfortable recommending it but the writing and story certainly are compelling and deserving of four or five stars. It is ofttimes downright More...

0 comments like

Dec 14, 2009

Natalia rated it:

Wow, I love a good tell-all, but this reads like a sordid wallow in a really messed up life. The part that left me the most uncomfortable is that she still obviously romanticizes her time as a drug addict. She talks about it kind-of wistfully, as if she misses it.

On top of that, she has a really weird perspective about the people who were in her life at the times she was using. There is a lot of barely-contained bitterness towards her family and friends who wanted to help her, as if More...

0 comments like

Sep 26, 2009

Lee Anne rated it:

If all the teen stars of my favorite childhood shows continue to write memoirs, I will continue to read them. Few will top this one, though. Mackenzie Phillips had a drug habit that makes Maureen McCormick's pretty severe cocaine addiction look downright recreational.

Phillips has presented the seamier side of the happy hippie Laurel Canyon life (recently the topic of a pretty coffee table book I just skimmed). Five year olds wandering the beach unsupervised; junior high kids takin More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 27, 2009

Marsha rated it:

What a bunch of crappola. So, she's now broke and unemployable, needs money, so writes a book. Hell, let's make it really sell and add an incestuous relationship and there will be enough money to get high for a while longer. My bet? Five years down the road, when the money from this piece of crap is gone, there will be a sequel that will go like this: I found the real help I need with an amazing doctor. My incest memories were false and drug induced or, I said it 'cuz I was high. Ooopsy. But, wo More...

0 comments like

Nov 05, 2009

Indra rated it:

I watched "One Day at a Time" in reruns. I'm a huge fan of the Mamas and the Papas. I read John and Michelle Phillips' respective autobiographies in the '80s. Blah blah blah. I like biographies and autobiographies as a general rule, particularly when they relate to music, writing, acting and/or art. I like memoirs, period. I wouldn't necessarily place "High on Arrival" in the same class as the memoirs of Mary Karr or Augusten Burroughs (who, incidentally, writes a glowing r More...

0 comments like

Oct 12, 2011

Susan rated it:

As a huge fan of The Mamas and The Papas and a watcher of "One Day at a Time" I was curious to read the "daughter's story". I knew about the drugs and the crazy lifestyle, what I didn't know was about the incest. And while it is sort of the bombshell of the book, it is by no means the whole story.

I believe in truth-telling; I think in the end we are rendered more compassionate and empathetic for it. I am sorry not everyone sees it that way. Incest is never consens More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 23, 2010

Karen rated it:

Wow...well, I finished this book but it got tough near the end to do it. I wasn't sure I really wanted to know how she ends up. Laura Mackenzie Phillips has had a FUBAR life for the past 50 years. If you don't know what FUBAR is then ask someone! She was born to 2 people who couldn't have been more different & she tried to live in both worlds but couldn't do it. So she chose the world of her screwed up rock-n-roll father, John Phillips. (Founder of the 70's band the Mama's & the Papa's)There was More...

0 comments like

Mar 01, 2010

Heather rated it:

Ugh. I love celebrity/my life sucked memoirs. And I was totally chomping at the bit to read this one. It was a months-long exercise in self control to not drop the $20 on it at the book store before the library produced it for me.

But I prevailed and boy am I happy I did because I would be pretty sad had I dropped $20 on this thing.

Here is the deal: MacKenzie Phillips had an insane life. But it appears as though it was so insane she couldn't write about it coherently. Wh More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 06, 2010

Hilary rated it:

I don’t know how to write a review of this book - I am still reeling from it. Laura Mackenzie Phillips spares no details when discussing her life. She explains how she did drugs, when she did drugs, how her father taught her how to shoot up, how she had an incestuous relationship with her father for years, how she got pregnant and didn’t know if her dad or another guy was the father so she had to abort it, how she got clean, how she relapsed, how she was arrested, and finally how she got clean a More...

0 comments like

Mar 10, 2010

Amy rated it:

I've been waiting for Mackenzie to write a book for quite some time now. I've always been a fan of hers and was really disappointed when she was busted a few years back after all those years of sobriety. Critics will say that incident is what made her want to write her story. I say to them so what if it did? She has every right to tell it after so many have judged her all of these years.

This book reminded me much of Wonderland Avenue (Incidently, Danny Sugerman and Mackenzie were gr More...

1 comment like

Oct 01, 2009

Emily rated it:

The book was amazing. It was intriguing. It was distgusting. And it was sad. Not because of the circumstances, because it was sad. But because it shows how drugs can ruin and run someone's life. I have been a The Mama's and the Papa's fan since I was young. It always went: Elvis. The Beatles. The Mama's and the Papas. So I was intrigued with the book. I read it in less than 3 days. I literally couldn't put it down. Her drug addiction. The thing with her father. Her recovery. Her relapse. Then he More...

0 comments like

Nov 02, 2009

Donna rated it:

I was up and down with this book. I mean I liked it but that was all. I felt that sometimes she was holding back and didn't really want to tell the truth about "certain" things. She did tell a lot and I am sure it was hard for her but then there were things that I just couldn'e grasp.

Like about her father, I think she was more aware than what she was telling us. I think she loved her father very much so and wanted to protect him and that's why she waited until his death to More...

4 comments like

Jun 05, 2011

Audrey rated it:

As I began reading this book about Mackenzie Phillips and her completely screwed-up upbringing, I had no idea what kind of roller coaster ride I was in for. Her ghost writer is a phenomenal master of the written word, and I would add a star just for that alone, but this was the never-ending story of sex, drugs and rock n roll that just went round and round into an abysmal downward spiral. I actually couldn't wait to reach the end because I was so tired of reading about her drug use. This story c More...

0 comments like

Oct 08, 2011

Doris rated it:

would have rated higher, except that the author's lack of education came blazing through. It seemed to use profanity as a crutch, filling in the spaces when the admittedly drug-damaged mind was unable to find worthwhile, expressive words.

As a side note, profanity is sometimes okay, as in when you do something incredibly stupid or painful. However, in everyday language, most adults limit profanity and don't use it as a necessary adjective or connector word.

That said, the More...

0 comments like

Nov 09, 2010

MariNaomi rated it:

What a tragic story! I didn't exactly read this book, I listened to Mackenzie Phillips read an abridged version. At first, when she talked about her teenage years, it was disconcerting listening to an older woman with a drug-ravaged (or perhaps one would call it sexy-husky) voice talk about the girl I remember from "One Day at a Time" go through all these crazy-awful experiences. But eventually I got used to it, and I do think that hearing it come from the author herself was overall be More...

0 comments like

Aug 17, 2010

Peacegal rated it:

While it’s no great piece of literature, High on Arrival does surpass the writing style of several other celebrity autobiographies I’ve read (I’m looking at you, Ms. Boyd).

By now, most everyone is aware that this is Phillip’s tell-all memoir about her years as an abused drug addict. I’m sure I’m not alone in wondering how on earth this woman is still alive, considering how many other of her contemporaries were felled by drug and alcohol abuse.

I realize that there is a ce More...

0 comments like

Nov 21, 2009

Kellie rated it:

-I stayed up last night until I finished this book. Not really because it was so good, I couldn’t put it down, I just wanted to get it done. The whole book is about MacKenzie’s drug addition. There almost isn’t a page that goes by that doesn’t have something to do with drugs on it. The book reminds me of Tatum O’Neils’ Paper Life. Both are very sad accounts of actresses whose childhoods are so full of chaos and abuse. They were both, as young kids, often left on their own, unsupervised by More...

0 comments like

Jan 19, 2012

Bridget rated it:

I admit I have a soft spot for Mackenzie after watching the entire run of So Weird on NHK when I was in Japan -- it was comforting to see a familiar face once a week on the tv.
So it may have been that and the personal context (reading the bulk of this memoir through a migraine while waiting to see if my grandma would make it through surgery) but I really enjoyed this book. For a child star rehab memoir, I feel like the story was engaging and the timeline not too muddy. I don't have much to More...

0 comments like

Jan 12, 2011

Jill rated it:

For those of you who don’t remember her, MacKenzie Phillips is a former child star – better known for her roles on the movie American Graffiti and ‘70’s sitcom One Day at a Time. Her father was John Phillips of The Mamas & the Papas. As you can imagine, MacKenzie’s was no ordinary childhood. She had an ‘interesting’ relationship with her father and, mixing with celebrities and rock stars from an early age, it’s hardly surprising that she quickly got involved in the drug scene. High on Arrival is More...

0 comments like