Never was a subtitle truer than this book being "long-winded short stories," but I would add the word "boring" in the middle of that phrase. There are a lot of words spread across the almost 300 pages but very little is actually said.
Ripa claims to have written all of this herself (doubtful, she probably had a really good editor that wasn't willing to cut out all the dull stuff because there would be such a short manuscript left). And Kelly insists it's a "book of essays" instead of a "memoir," but really it's mostly inconsequential verbosity that I highly suspect is meant to cover up for the real secrets that she keeps carefully hidden within. Or as the Jersey girl might want to call it--it's verbal vomit.
She starts with a strange introduction telling readers that she knows she can't write well and doesn't even deserve to be hosting a talk show (I agree with both), trying to do the fake humility bit as a way to compensate when the negative reviews come in. She thinks a great way to begin the book is to talk about the timing of the press release announcing the publication of this tome? She has no idea how to put together real stories, and from the start it's obvious this is all just one big PR game.
Ripa runs through wordy explanations of her marriage, childbirth, and her surprisingly successful career. There is never enough depth to satisfy. She also talks about sex quite a bit (odd for someone married for so long, is there something she's hiding?) and isn't afraid to use more R-rated language than she does on TV.
Probably the most controversial (and most interesting) chapter involves her working with Regis Philbin and how she was hired. There is no love lost between the co-hosts, and it's obvious Ripa isn't happy with how she has been treated by the show's owners and producers over the years. However, she fails to go into much detail, pulling her punching and leaving the ring limp.
She manages to make her husband look bad quite a few times, slams Regis without subtlety, makes innocent wisecracks about her children, and ignores or barely mentions some of the biggest things she's known for (Hope & Faith, Michael Strahan, Ryan Seacrest). She even makes a couple demeaning comments about Gelman!
It's as if she wants to burn bridges (even saying how much she hates going in to do the talk show every day) but she doesn't have the guts to fully start the flames. Her personal wall is way up when it comes to telling deep truths about her marriage, kids, workplace, unusual friendships with a number of famous gays, and what her future holds.
Give her a little credit: on page 110 she writes, "In case you haven't figured it out by now, I tend to ramble." That's the understatement of the year. What she calls being a "live wire" is actually her nervous energy using hundreds of pages to say almost nothing.