The Princess Diarist

"There's not much in my life that I've kept secret. Many would argue there are certain otherwise-private stories I might've been wiser to keep closer to the vest. That vest knows no proximity." - Carrie Fisher What in the world can be said about Carrie Fisher's remarkable gift for writing except that it was, in fact, remarkable. For all that I loved her as an actress, for all that I truly ADORED her as my personal hero, Princess Leia, writing was where her true talent lay, and I believe this is where her heart really was. "The Princess Diarist" was yet another entry into the brilliance of Ms. Fisher's mind, fogged and clouded as it was sometimes with her depression, sparkling at other times with her wit. This was the most personal book she has written, I feel, and one of the most uplifting and most poignant. She tells us in the first chapter that while going through some boxes of old writing she found the diaries she kept while filming the first Star Wars movie forty years beforehand. She begins briefly with how she got into acting 2 years before that, despite never really actively wanting to be in show business at all, and moves quickly to those days of auditions, when she read both for the parts of Princess Leia in "Star Wars" and for the titular part in the horror film "Carrie." "I thought that last role would be a funny casting coup if I got it: Carrie *as* Carrie *in* 'Carrie'." Her recollections of her own inner monologues after the casting call are fun and funny, and the way she remembers reading the script for the first is vivid and touching how much she loved it (even though that script would later be completely redone since Star Wars was not going to have that kind of budget). She tells us how much she wanted the part, how excited she was when she got the call that "they want you." She remembers laughing and running into the street in the rain. "It didn't rain in L.A. It was raining in L.A. and I was Princess Leia. I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would never not be Princess Leia. I had no idea how profoundly true that was and how long forever was." The biggest chunk of the book is her recollections of the things that happened behind the scenes during the three-month shooting, wrapping up with the crazy-wild reception of the film after it's release. Did you know that the term "blockbuster" was born shortly after "Star Wars" premiered as way to describe the lines going around the block and continuing to the next one? Carrie tells us, "It was *one movie*. It wasn't supposed to do *that.* Nothing ever had. Movies were meant to stay on the scree, flat and large and colorful, gathering you up in their sweep of story, carrying you rollicking along to the end, then releasing you back into your unchanged life. But this movie misbehaved. It leaked out of the theater, poured off the screen, affected a lot of people so deeply that they required endless talismans and artifacts to stay connected to it... And on top of whatever else, Mark, Harrison, and I were the only people who were having this experience. So who do talk to that might understand?" She goes on to say that this was completely unlike starring in your average everyday movie because now she was a household name and there were cameras everywhere. "I had to comport myself with something approaching dignity, at *twenty.*" So her recollections of being in that movie forty years before could and can still apply to young stars today as an object lesson. The last 2 chapters of the book tell us about Ms. Fisher's more recent fan encounters at the conventions where she signs autographs and gives pictures, how she feels about Leia now (you'll be surprised) and how life as Leia has affected her now that the has distance and perspective of forty years to better dissect the unadulterated fandom that has surrounded this character she brought to life. Altogether a thoroughly entertaining read, and not just for the fans. Having read excerpts to my 65 year old mother who was never a fan (though she had been forced to at least peripherally watch the original trilogy multiple times due to *my* fandom and the fact that we were never so well off that there were TVs and VCRs in the kids' rooms), she was entertained enough to download the sample for herself and hooked enough from the start to buy the book. I would hear her laughing at loud when she read on her lunch break where we worked together, and also sometimes making sympathetic noises or faces at her Kindle. Trust me, you don't have to be a Star Wars fan to love this one.

Let me just preface by saying I’m not a die-hard Star Wars fan. Love sci-fi as a genre but beyond the first three films, I can take or leave the rest of the series. So this wasn’t a Star Wars super-fan purchase so much as that I like autobiographies and this one made a buzz. A little bit harder to read than other autobiographies I have gotten into. I think what mostly contributes to that is the subject matter. Revealing an affair that happened years ago when she was 19 and the married guy, who BTW is none other than HARRISON FORD, would be difficult to talk about. It speaks to her character that she actually cares how this comes across not just in regard to her image but anyone else involved. There is an overly-wordy, and insecure self-deprecating quality to this book which to me comes across as an attempt to painfully amble through that experience, veiling it as she goes. I think I went into this thinking “damn girl, you and Harrison!? Nice catch!!” But instead she infuses, especially since she has her old diary, the true insecurities and painful longing a teenage girl can have in her heart about a romance. She spins in circles and struggles to rid herself of the all-consuming feeling of it. That, stylistically, puts you in that place and time with her. It’s easy to forget that stuff over time, but her diary discovery obviously forced it all back out there. It turns out this is one of several autobiographical pieces that cover different topics (which I wasn’t aware of.) I haven’t read the others, but it’s an interesting approach. As a complete book it probably could have benefitted from a co-author for the sake of organization of thoughts and story-flow. It often goes into a stream of consciousness style and lingers there for quite a while. However Fisher is quite the wordsmith, she does know her way around the language.

As a 42 year Star Wars fan, (I saw it for the first time in the 1979 rerelease, just before Empire was released in 1980), I was hoping for behind the scenes information. I have all of the “Making of Star Wars” books and was hoping for Carrie’s personal recollection of “behind the scenes” moments. There is a bit of that but not to the extent in which I was hoping. The book vaguely touches on her affair with Harrison Ford but this is no kiss and tell. What she reveals about their three month relationship is mostly her feelings of inadequacy and his silence. Her struggles have been played out in the public eye and through her own books, so I shouldn’t have been surprised at her internal angst and turmoil but I was. Unnerving to say the least. This is the first book of Carrie’s that I have read. She has self-deprecating humor and the reader feels that she is talking to them personally, but her constant negative internal musings and opinions of herself reveal that she was totally opposite of Princess Leia. I felt sorry for her and all the self imposed angst she went through. As Leia, she was strong willed, hard headed and tough. The first Princess who could kick your butt and smile while doing it. She publicly struggled with issues and from reading this book her internal demons were the reason why. This is a book more about what she was feeling, thinking and imagining while she was making Star Wars, not so much about behind the scenes of making the movie. If you are a die hard Star Wars fan like myself, this book will leave you unsatisfied and slightly depressed. I am glad I bought and read it because it separates the actress from the character. We get to see the real Carrie and not just the character on the screen. Two totally different personalities, one real and one scripted, merged and melded forever in our hearts. If you love all things Star Wars, then buy this book. It is a very real version of Carrie’s thoughts and feelings during that 3 month period when history was being made. If you are looking for seedy details of an elicit affair, you will be disappointed. Thank you Carrie Fisher for bringing to life the feistiest Princess to grace the silver screen, I am just sad that the woman behind the Princess didn’t see just how great she really was. Rest In Peace.

When Carrie Fisher recently 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. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is 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 the type of stardom that few will ever experience. My Thoughts: A thoroughly enjoyable foray into the past, The Princess Diarist showed the author’s trademark humor, self-deprecatory descriptions, and the skill of the wordsmith that have followed her in all of her work. Additionally, the photos were some I had never seen before. I liked how she tastefully revealed the love affair that had been a secret for years. I felt as though I could see into her heart as she revealed her anxieties about that relationship, while also allowing us to enjoy the thrill she felt, most precious because she also knew that it was a temporary thing. Those insecurities came out most in the diary entries, written by her younger self. She was nineteen at the time, while Harrison Ford was in his thirties. Her anecdotes of their short relationship, which she has characterized as a three-month one-night stand, reveal much about their personalities then…and later, too. Her thoughts forty years later were also typically witty, even about very emotional topics. While she honestly revealed her thoughts and feelings, she was also able to mask the pain with her wit. I especially enjoyed her anecdotes about the Princess Leia iconic images and the ongoing fan reactions, especially as time went by. Were her portrayals of Princess Leia her most defining moments? Must she constantly be confronted by the images, including dolls that commemorated her youthful life? Then again, without those reminders, would the fame have faded? Fortunately, other movies and her bestselling novels added to her legacy. Sadly, since Carrie Fisher’s passing in December 2016, we all must confront the reality that we will forever be looking into the rear view mirror when we think of her. I cherish the books and movies I own, and especially enjoyed this last memoir, the one she was celebrating at the time of her death. 5 stars.

There’s no way I could rate this book anything other than five stars. It was raw, honest, funny, entertaining and it painted such a vivid story of her life regarding the fame Star Wars gave her. She had no clue that the franchise would be as big of a hit as it was nor did she know she would become a sex symbol for men and a symbol of empowerment for women all at once. I think that Carrie is an amazing storyteller. I enjoyed reading this book and it really hooked me from the beginning. I even found time between working at both of my jobs to read as much of this book as I could. I wanted to devour it and read it in one sitting. It made me laugh, it made me kind of emotional, and it was just so great to hear real stories from her time as an actress and on the Star Wars set. I really enjoyed the journal entries she included from that time, they really helped me think about what might have been going through her head. It makes me sad to think that during her lifetime she often felt overshadowed by Leia Organa, as if that was the important part of her and people didn’t really care about the real her. I think her biggest hope (from what I gather after reading this book) is she wants to be remembered and admired for being herself - Carrie Fisher.

This would be a good read for anyone interested in Carrie Fisher, Star Wars, Princess Leia...but if you bought this after the "Carrison" revelation, let's be honest - you're reading it for the scoop, the skinny, the dish. What the reader gets instead is an honest duality - Carrie as a 19 year old actress and Carrie the older woman reflective back upon those times of forty plus years ago. The writing is at once witty and honest, angst-ridden and soul-bearing. In particular, the reprinted pages from her journal contain some of Ms. Fisher's best and most brilliant writing, and foreshadow why she would be recognized later as a comic with a sharp wit. It is hard to say where this book ranks with her earlier works, and there is a sense that it draws heavily upon and feels at times to be solely a delivery vehicle to expose and share the relationship with Harrison Ford during Star Wars. What stops this from being simply a sordid tell-all, however, is the honesty and the introspection that Ms. Fisher injects into each page. This is a collection vulnerable feelings, both of a young and older Carrie Fisher. By the end, one is left with a guilty feeling of intrusion into the pages of a personal diary alongside an appreciation of the fact that that diary is freely given and newly annotated with subsequent reflection by the writer. In other words, this is a gift of a book, made more precious by the untimely loss of the author. She would, I'm sure, shake her head knowingly at the fact that with her death, the book is now on backorder. Read this.

Like most boys my age, I was in love with Princess Leia at an age when I really didn’t know what love was. Something about a feisty girl who could throw a punch. This memoir further confirms the notion that Carrie Fisher was even more feisty than her onscreen counterpart. In it the ultimate question is who is she if not Leia? It clearly took her decades to reconcile her love of the character with her desire for privacy and her own identity. A fantastic memoir, for fans if city Star Wars or Hollywood in general.

As a lifelong Star Wars fan, I was really hoping that Carrie would have done a real in-depth account of her time filming Episode IV (my fav movie of all time). Sadly, this is not the case as it turns out. Don't read this book expecting any super details about the movie. At the risk of revealing some slight spoilers, I can sum up those parts as follows: - Want to know her thoughts about that famous swing across the Death Star chasm with Luke? Mentioned in a few sentences...to the crew while drunk. - Her take on using a blaster rifle while filming? Barely a short paragraph. - The scene with Governor Tarkin? Mostly about how she somehow said the lines with a British accent. - The hairstyle? Gets more attention than anything, even the costumes. ...and that's about as far as it goes. Did I expect her to compare lightsaber hilts between the various Jedi? Absolutely not, but what about the other actors? There are brief references to George Lucas, but nothing that hasn't been documented elsewhere years ago. What about goofs or silly events on set? Nothing. Besides very minor references to these movie scenes, you primarily get a story about her affair with Harrison Ford that is not only, in fact, rather boring but was completely unnecessary to have been revealed in the first place. Maybe it was a way to get it off of her mind after all of these years, but in all honesty it adds nothing to the Star Wars movie making history that is otherwise so rich, varied, and detailed. Her thoughts on the cultural impact that make up the last third of the book are interesting at first, but then become endless rambling. OK we get it, you're overwhelmed. Who wouldn't be? I can only imagine what it must be like going to fan conventions and being exposed to God knows what. But that could have been handled a lot more concisely. I find it hard to criticize someone whose character I will love forever, and who IS a character that I will also love forever, but seriously this is a book that should have either been reworked or never released in the first place. If the point was to prove that fame is a mixed blessing, and being part of a cultural phenomenon is a mind-blowing experience, it was made...but could have been done as a magazine article or blog. RIP Carrie, you will always be the princess of my Star Wars dreams.

I am always disappointed with someone who loves me - how perfect can he be if he can't see through me? As a lifelong Star Wars fan, this was already on my radar. However with the recent and tragic passing of Carrie Fisher, I instantly elevated it to my first read of 2017 - and what a read it was. A warning here - often Fisher's thoughts are disordered and chaotic; she was a rambler. If you don't think you'd like that then perhaps this isn't the book for you. However this is also painfully heartfelt in a way which makes you breathe that little bit harder and labour over each page - especially the diary entries themselves. Fisher's insecurity and self consciousness radiates through in the forms of disjointed sentences and poetry. She is candid about her teenage years and the beginnings of her foray into the world of Star Wars and celebrity. She also goes into some detail about her affair with Harrison Ford during the filming of episode four. This too is bittersweet - with Fisher clearly developing feelings which Ford doesn't return. There's nothing explicit or titillating about her account. Instead she reveals the emotional affair she felt she had (and the lack of one which Ford seemed to experience). Carrie Fisher seemed like a witty, expressive, creative woman. For all her struggles she writes with a brutal and compelling honesty which captured me as a reader from the first page. Her loss is one the world is bereft by. This, her last work, is an absolute must read.

Carrie Fisher.

I have always been fascinated with Carrie Fisher, and her life. Growing up in the midst of the Star Wars phenomenon had me fixated on it's stars: Harrison, Mark, and Carrie. All fascinating stories, but Carrie's was different. I have enjoyed all of her books, with her candour, and self deprecating reflections. She seems to be honest to a fault. The Princess Diarist continues with a wide open view to Ms. Fishers memories. A candid, back stage look at the making of a cultural dynasty. Her journal entries are raw, and witty. Just like Carrie herself. She is missed.

Entrega súper rápida y llegó intacto y en perfectas condiciones. No lo he comenzado pero por lo poco que he ojeado y leído se que terminaré llorando al final. Hermosa edición

Je l'ai reçu dans les temps, très bon état et bien mieux que je ne l'attendais! Je suis très satisfaite de mon achat, bonne qualitée et livre recommandee pour tout les fans de Carrie Fisher, merci.