We already have a couple of reviews of Lauren Graham’s newest book Talking as Fast as I Can and from the people I’m also friends with on Goodreads I’m sure there will be more. I am going to weigh in now with my review, and it’s this: the book is only good, in parts only okay, with moments of great. Three stars.
Wait, you want more? Okay, fine. But, I don’t like coming in with the first meh review on this one.
Graham got her writing deal based on a book she started writing on the set of Parenthood, which as a Graham aficionado I have of course read: Someday, Someday, Maybe. That book was also good, and I rated it three stars as well, but that may have had something to do with the depression I was in during CBR5. Very little got through the malaise in 2013. Her authorial voice in the memoir is different from in the novel, and that was good. Very good news actually, you don’t want the two things to sound identical. But… I preferred her tone in Someday.
I bet this book works better in audio. The things that bothered me had to do with repetition in the short page count (barely over 200 pages). I love a parenthetical aside, but with books written from first person singular as if in conversation with the reader, the same asides can grow old fast. Just how many times am I expected to think it’s cute that she’s saying hello to the various hosts of the Today Show as she references the morning show circuit?
The great stuff is that Graham shares her personality with us, and it’s very much what you would expect. It was nice to get an idea of her personal history and I did truly enjoy the stories about her extra year, undergrad, and eventually graduate school. I loved the chapter where she assesses her career history and the loving way she talks about both Gilmore experiences and Parenthood. I promise I liked the vast majority of this book!
Also, and this really is a nitpick; I did not enjoy reading about what a struggle it was to get this book published on time. I was excited to see where certain projects are in the pipeline and I really am excited for her collaboration with Mae Whitman for The Royal We, but you know, less of the “I’m so busy, this is hard!”.
Hopefully those of you who are going to read this love it more than me, but know that I really did enjoy my time reading it, and thanks to ellepkay for my book exchange gift!
I don’t like when authors write about how writing their book was hard, either. It was one of the few things I didn’t like about Amy Poehler’s book the first time through (though you’re right that the audio on these types of books changes things–I was much less annoyed by it when I listened to that book instead of reading the hard copy).
Besides Bossypants I’ve done all celebrity memoirs as audiobooks. I definitely prefer them that way. I’m way more patient with them talking to me in conversation than conversational writing. I can see how reading this was not as fun.