Talking as Fast as I Can

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


*** Possible Spoilers ***
I had a great deal of difficulty choosing a rating for this book because I could rate it anywhere from 1 to 5 stars depending on the criteria I chose.

I cannot say I liked the book but then I didn't dislike it either. The writing flows smoothly, the pacing is fine and the content was mildly interesting. This is a memoir, not an autobiography. It focuses on the author's relationship to one particular television show and her role in it. It discusses her writing career, her opinions on fashion and provides some amount of background as to how she entered the entertainment profession.

I read it because it won the Goodread's popular vote for humor in 2017 and I was curious as to whether it was humorous and what Goodread readers like.

There was some humor. The author has a casual approach to her writing that occasionally merits a smile, but if I was evaluating the work strictly on its humorous content it wouldn't do very well. This is a book about the Hollywood lifestyle and I suspected that such would be the case when I started so I wasn't disappointed - a bit bored from time to time, but not disappointed. Lauren Graham had a key role in the series Gilmore Girls and much of the book relates to how she got the role, how they made the show, how they made the follow-up series and the various and sundry relationships among the principles that surrounded it. I've never watched the series or any of the other shows she references in the book so it was difficult for me to relate to what she was talking about.

If you read this book from E-pub in its online version then the formatting is pretty bad in a few places.

If you're looking for tips as to how to become an actress the only things that I derived from the book was that it's necessary to work like a little fiend and take just about any sort of role or job you can get to stay alive while working your way upwards. Her advice for authors was similar. Just write like mad and sooner or later you'll have something resembling a book. I sort of knew that.

If you like Hollywood and the entertainment industry in general I think you'll enjoy this book. If you liked the series Gilmore Girls you'll like it as well. If you enjoy plenty of name dropping and something along the lines of 'Entertainment Tonight', which, Wikipedia tells me is still running although I doubt I've seen it in the last twenty years, then once again I think this book is for you.

On the other hand, if you don't like a rather glib, somewhat facile look at the acting profession or if you think you might get some insight beyond 'work, work, work' as a means of establishing yourself as an actor, then this is probably a waste of time. For me it provided an overview of a lifestyle that is clearly not something to which I would ever aspire but I liked learning at least a bit about it. There isn't a whole lot in the way of content but if you don't mind superficiality then it's okay.




View all my reviews