Amazon.com: Best Awful There is, The (9780743257206): Carrie Fisher: Books

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Carrie Fisher, the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher, became an icon when she starred as Princess Leia in the original Star Wars trilogy. Her star-studded career includes roles in numerous films such as The Blues Brothers and When Harry Met Sally. She is the author of five bestselling novels, Wishful Drinking, Surrender the Pink, Delusions of Grandma, The Best Awful, and Postcards from the Edge, which was made into a hit film starring Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep. Fisher's experience with addiction and mental illness--and her willingness to speak honestly about them--have made her a sought-after speaker and respected advocate.

Customer Reviews

46 Reviews

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(10)

Average Customer Review

3.1 out of 5 stars (46 customer reviews)

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48 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars No bull, no boring roman a clef, just a gem..., January 6, 2004

By

L Goodman-Malamuth "Leslie Goodman-Malamuth" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Best Awful (Hardcover)

Arthur Miller, the playwright, once said something along the lines of, "Agony, sure I have agony. But everybody has agony. The difference is that I take mine home and try to make it sing."

From Carrie Fisher, we get an aria, and quite a successful one at that. I was expecting to be entertained by The Best Awful, and I was, yet the novel is far more satisfying than Hollywood fluff. Whatever insights the author has earned through her turbulent/famous/funny life have given her depth and substance as an author. Fisher offers up sharp dialogue (not just a string of one-liners), a vivid but unpreachy view of mental health and its absence, and characters so real that I expected to see them sitting next to me on the sofa.

Wow.

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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, January 20, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Best Awful (Hardcover)

"The Best Awful" is wonderful, a compelling work whose humor belies a heartrending truth. In dealing with mental illness, Fisher doesn't sanitize insanity, but gives us a hard, unsparing look at what happens when a mind is lost, or rather, when it's found on an out-of-this-world plane. She takes us along a harrowing trip, harnessed to fast, furious, and funny prose. The strange thing is, it's a curl-up-under-the-covers read, a safe haven, where not only do you appreciate your own boring "normalcy," you develop a compassion you never knew you had. While Suzanne Vale's pain is so real, her rantings so over-the-detailed-top, it's her humanity that's still front and center -- an amoral ethicist pontificating on what it means to live a large life made larger by turning small. You have to read it to get that line! A beautifully done job. Fisher is a celebrity who truly deserves to be celebrated. And no, I'm not a friend, and until now, I wasn't a thumbs-up-to-the-sky fan.

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A poignant, funny look at bipolar disorder...very readable!, February 6, 2004

By

Invisiboy2001 "invisiboy2001" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Best Awful (Hardcover)

I have read all four of Carrie Fisher's novels, and this one is my second favorite, after the charming, hilarious "Delusions of Grandma." This novel includes many colorful central and secondary characters, but none as vibrant as Suzanne Vale, the bipolar heroine.

"The Best Awful" takes the reader on a roller-coster ride from the stability of everyday "sane" life through the perils of meltdown...and all the way to the loony bin and out again. Laced with Fisher's winning humor and alarming literacy, this novel is a winner from beginning to end. The ride will keep you laughing and leave you a little sad, but ultimately "The Best Awful" serves as a satifying read.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars The Awful Awful
Coping with manic depression personally, I returned this to my library perhaps half read.......I just couldn't subject myself to finishing this book, or perhaps, manic induced... Read more

Published 13 months ago by caught inside

1.0 out of 5 stars Too bad the Audio CD is truncated.
I cannot really give an honest review of the book because the audio version is truncated. I received 5 CDs. The last track is very short and just stops in mid-sentence. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Tom Potts

1.0 out of 5 stars Worst awful
This book was reallllly slow. I liked the description of manic episodes and the nervous breakdown. The writing was unimpressive and gave too much background information for the... Read more

Published 18 months ago by Kirstin Uran

2.0 out of 5 stars Definitely *not* the best awful.
I slogged through almost 100 pages of this book before just giving up. I kept waiting for something to happen. Some movement, some dialog - SOMETHING. Read more

Published on August 12, 2009 by N. Pierre

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Awf
Even though this is fictional novel the story of Suzanne through her experience with bipolar disorder is as real as it gets. Read more

Published on March 31, 2009 by Kenneth E. Smith

1.0 out of 5 stars Not Worth Reading
After years of reading mostly non fiction, I finally had the time and inclination to get back to reading fiction. Read more

Published on December 6, 2008 by Designed2Dazzle

2.0 out of 5 stars funny but scatterbrained
The main character is bipolar, with a short attention span when manic. I felt this book was the same way. Read more

Published on November 21, 2007 by anibani

1.0 out of 5 stars "Awful" is right
I bought this book on cd, read by the author. If I were not trapped in a car driving for 6 hours with nothing else to do, I would never have finished it. It was painful. Read more

Published on March 16, 2007 by Shoppinglvr

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Best Awful
Carrie Fisher is a brilliant author, mother and gadabout in Hollywood. She manages to prove this and more in the aptly titled "The Best Awful". Read more

Published on February 13, 2007 by Kimberly Harwell

4.0 out of 5 stars This book had me until the end
I was willing to take this journey with narrator Suzanne (and I know very little about Carrie Fisher, so I do see it as Suzanne's story and not Carrie's). Read more

Published on November 26, 2005 by Bishop

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Inside This Book (learn more)
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First Sentence:
Suzanne Vale had a problem, and it was the one she least liked thinking about: She'd had a child with someone who forgot to tell her he was gay. Read the first page

Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Shady Lanes, Dean Bradbury, Big Bird, Los Angeles, Suzanne Vale, Jack Burroughs, New York, Diet Coke, Flying Pig, Louise Madigan, Mark Vogel, Santa Barbara, Grateful Dead, Shaky Brains

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