Book Review: The Princess Diarist

Title: The Princess Diarist
Author: Carrie Fisher
Publication Date: 2016
Publishing House: Blue Rider Press

I read this book after having read a review of it on another blog. I will link their blog once I find the post. I enjoyed this memoir as an audio book from the library. It is narrated in part by Carrie Fisher herself and is wonderful to listen to.

Goodreads Synopsis:

The last book from beloved Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher, The Princess Diarist is an intimate, hilarious, and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie. 

When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved–plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher’s intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time–and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into one of Hollywood’s most beloved stars.

This is a super quick read, or listen, and is great for a weekend where you want to learn a little bit. I really enjoyed that this audiobook is narrated by the author. It lends a sense of authorial intent and with as open as Fisher was in her writing – no one can read her own words better. Funny enough the old diary entries that are included in the book are actually read by a different narrator. Fisher reads her color commentary and reflections on her filming of A New Hope as bookends to the diary entries.

This book is very open. Fisher shares so much of her life and how it was shaped by her mother’s fading fame and her own growing fame after she played a space princess in a little, low budget science fiction film. Yes, the main focus is the filming of the first movie but she reflects on the long term affects of the popularity of the movie. There are also LOTS of comments to the metal bikini from the second film. After finishing this book I really wanted to go watch the first film again and see if the off screen relationships can be seen at all in the actor’s on screen characters.

I suggest this book to fans of Carrie Fisher, for fans of Star Wars, fans of Fisher’s other books, and those interested in memoirs. I have really enjoyed diving into moments of people’s lives that they are willing to share; some how those moments seem so much more intimate than a full autobiography or biography. What do you thing of memoirs? Have you ready any of Carrie Fisher’s books? Let me know in the comments. Happy reading!

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