Customer Reviews

Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

So unfortunate . . . I really, really wanted to like this book. Like many women in their 30s, I was enamored with Molly Ringwald (in a girl-crush, that's who I want to be sort of way) throughout high school. So when I happened upon this book in my local library, I immediately grabbed it. Though I was hoping for an autobiography, I must say that when I read the flap I was intrigued. Molly Ringwald was going to give me advice. How cool is that? And she's going to help me get my "pretty back" (ok, I never knew I lost my "pretty" but if I needed to retrieve it, I was glad that it was Molly who was going to help me find it).

Then I read the book. Which, as I stated above, was unfortunate. Because I no longer felt like I needed to "get my pretty back". I more or less felt that I needed to get the last 20 or so years of my life back. You see, I haven't ever made a movie; lived in France; fallen in love with a man several years my junior who was dating my friend; and/or had his children. I'm not inclined to throw dinner parties on the rooftop garden of my New York apartment (so creating the perfect cheese plate is a lost art to me) or go on wine buying "binges". I don't care how to tie a Hermes scarf because I can't afford one. Nor do I want to hear someone espousing the benefits of peels and injectable fillers. Perhaps, my life has not been as exciting as I've led myself to believe. Or, perhaps, this book is not as great as the editors copy led me to believe. I honestly didn't know that a book could give me low self-esteem. Though now she is perfectly poised to write a follow up tome on "How to Get the Dignity Back".

To say that this book left me cold would be an understatement. While I'm not apposed to self-help books and am all for personal betterment, this book failed in both categories. The advice was trite and lacking in depth, emotion and, most shockingly, usefulness. It came off as self-indulgent fluff targeted at a select few. (Most likely, those who've never seen the inside of a Target.)

Here's a remarkable, readable, highly entertaining book that's full of surprises!

Former teen star Molly Ringwald (currently featured on ABC's Secret Life of the American Teenager) writes about relationships, success, confidence, appearance --- topics of interest to many --- while revealing personal depth and clear maturity. The book's breezy, join-me-for-a-chat tone invites the reader on a journey that is more than rewarded here.

In an age of petulant teen stars and train-wreck public personas, it's refreshing to encounter someone who wasn't ruined by success. Instead, adolescent success appears to have stretched, enlightened, and matured this young actress.

Credit her family, her friends, her support network. Credit her high intelligence. Regardless of cause and effect, the outcome here would make John Hughes proud.

Dr. David Frisbie
The Center for Marriage & Family Studies
Author of "The Soul-Mate Marriage" and 9 other books

What I Loved: Molly narrated her own book and I think this works for this book. She has a good reading voice.

What I Liked: This book covers everything from dinner parties to lipstick. I can't think of a topic that she did not cover. In that aspect, this book delivered on it's promise to give you advice on how to handle anything. I also enjoyed when she threw in antidotes about her life over the years. Those little stories were the best part of the book.

What I thought was So-So/Didn't Like: I really wanted to love this book but most of it was "eh". I am not sure that most of her advice is good for everyday people. It is probably because I am not a fashionita. I do figure that I am not the main target audience for this book. It just seemed a little out of reach for most normal people.

Why I gave it a 2: I will admit that this is one of those books that will probably get ratings from bad to good because it really is more of a personal type of book. The advice either appeals to you or not. I love Molly Ringwald and feel like this book will appeal to other people. It just didn't work for me.

Who I would recommend it too: Anyone who likes non-fiction advice books on beauty, travel, wine, and cooking.

Author Website: Harper Collins Book Site

I wanted to love this book. It seemed perfect. My big screen BFF from high school, Molly Ringwald, turned 40 (just like me), had kids (just like me) and lost her pretty (too much like me). She worked to get her pretty back. I need to do that! Sat down and read the whole book in two hours. Save your two hours.

She starts with such a great premise: remember who you were before the responsibilities of life took over and bring that pretty back into your life. The problem is, she spent the book explaining who she is and showing you how to be her. Why would I care what her favorite lipstick colors are? Why do I need to know her wardrobe essentials? Instead of encouraging women to look at who they were and have become, she shows you how to be just like Molly. She also spends time showing you how to stay bitter as she takes digs at neighbors and a ex-boyfriends' family. She even gets a little weird when she brags her four year old believes in evolution.

The premise for this book is awesome. Hopefully someone will give it another try and get it right.

Witty. Inspiring. Humorous. Vibrant. Touching. Relatable. Perfectly Pretty.

I opened Getting The Pretty Back, read the first page, and I didn't stop until there were no more pages to turn. The book not only recounts elements of Molly's life, but it also inspires, encourages, and mirrors every woman's life. It was refreshing to read chapters on dating and love, fashion and hair, friends and social networking, and the importance of family and how family shapes you. The book is perfectly relatable and you can feel the emotion of every written word.

It also cannot go without mentioning the vibrant colors, the darling illustrations, and the brilliant quotes that are strategically placed throughout the book. They are the perfect addition to the book, adding another dimension - fun/light-heartedness.

When you read Getting the Pretty Back, you will laugh, you may cry ( those poems are touching), you will feel uplifted; and most importantly, you will feel pretty!

Being a product of the 80's, I have always greatly admired Molly Ringwald's acting and style. She was a role model for me when I was a teenager, and I am grateful to get a glimpse into her life and her advice on life. We really cannot get enough wisdom these days. I found her book inspiring and very down-to-earth; full of personal advice, life stories and honest revelations that I was able to relate to. Now I can turn 40 this year and have a great book to read when I need a boost of advice from someone who simply reminds me of my younger days... Thank you Molly!

What I immediately loved about Ringwald's book is the spirit of being true to yourself. As soon as I read the line, "I discovered...that as long as I set the trend, instead of following it, I'd be okay," I knew that the Molly we all loved and believed in was still very much with us. The book may offer beauty and fashion tips, but it's all presented in a way that allows women to take the advice and make it their own. Though Molly sings the praises of designer bags, she also knows that the funky purse found at Target makes way more sense for most women. It's a sentiment that makes being pretty accessible, just as Pretty in Pink did nearly twenty-five years ago.

Of course, the book isn't just about looking good - it's really about feeling good. Getting the pretty back involves maintaining healthy friendships, pursuing our dreams, eating, entertaining, exercising, and encouraging confidence and individuality in our children. Somehow the idea of eating seems the most revolutionary of all. While most style books emphasize dieting and staying trim, Molly gives us permission to round up our friends and have some fondue. How do you not love a girl who loves food?!

Getting the Pretty Back is not a dishy memoir, but Ringwald's experiences are woven throughout the narrative. We definitely get a sense of who she is and what's she's been up to, but that's not the point. This charmingly illustrated book does exactly what Molly has always done so well: it empowers women to be the best possible version of themselves. I can think of nothing prettier.

Molly Ringwald was one of those iconic eighties stars who was seen in many of the John Hughes films and was dubbed, along with a few of her costars in these productions as well as some others, as part of the "brat pack." She had a signature style that was "copied" in some of her movies, like Pretty in Pink. She shopped vintage and layered a lot. Sort of an "Annie Hall for the Younger Set."

Then we didn't see her for a few years, except in less well-known movies. She moved to France for awhile. Then she was married with a child and back in LA, after a period in Manhattan. Now she stars as a mom to teens on an ABC Family network series. Full circle.

In her book that seems like an advice book--and it does cover numerous topics like fashion, workouts, etc.--she converses with the reader about the things that no longer work in our lives as we get older. But then she also shares tidbits about friendship, how she met her current husband, and what she learned while living in France.

These snippets I enjoyed. It felt like a sneak peek into her real (vs. celebrity) life, without discounting the celebrity aspect. She felt like the girl-next-door who came to visit for awhile.

If I look at the book as just that, a conversation with intriguing little tidbits, it is enjoyable. The advice didn't really do much for me, but then again, I'm much older than her target audience, which I would say is forty-something.

So I enjoyed the style, with the conversations; the little sidebar cartoons and tips were fun; but none of it was really relevant for my life. I am someone from her mother's generation, so I did feel a maternal connection to her and her stories.

I would not recommend this to anyone who is seeking really significant advice or expecting a full-on celebrity memoir. If you don't mind the "tidbits" approach, you might enjoy Getting the Pretty Back: Friendship, Family, and Finding the Perfect Lipstick. You could also love it if you are a big fan and want to read it for the memories. For me it earned three stars.

I flip-flopped on how I felt about this book. I felt that some of her talk on makeup, clothes and dinner parties was more common sense than anything, but she does share some interesting and good thoughts on the subjects as well. I have to say my favorite part was her discussing the difference between making time with friends and family to actually meet up face to face over just sending text messages and twitter.

She enjoyes cooking and Paris, both of which I really did not know that about her, so I did get to learn more about the person behind the tv screen and her surviving the entertainment world as a child star into adulthood. Overall a 100% chick lit book.

No, no -- not THAT F-word, this one: Forty.

As Molly enters her 40's she looks back on other phases of her life, from those teen years that were immortalized on screen in such hits as PRETTY IN PINK, 16 CANDLES, and THE BREAKFAST CLUB. Unlike some teen stars, she doesn't shy away from those years. She talks about how they helped make her who she is today, and how her individual and personal style was often used on screen.

GETTING THE PRETTY BACK is not a beauty book, or a fashion book, or a self-help book. It has elements of all of this, but really reading this book is just like having a good candid chat with a girlfriend. Ringwald dishes on personal style and taking care of yourself -- physically, socially, and emotionally.

The text type is fun and there are lots of colorful drawings by Ruben Toledo. Because of the fun way the book looks, I think that this would make a great girlfriend gift, whether she's turning 30, 40, or 50.