by Valerie Bertinelli |
REVIEWED BY CAROLINE LEAVITT
MEMOIR
Come on, who doesn't adore actress and Jenny Craig spokeswoman Valerie Bertinelli? From her stint as America's sweetheart Barbara Cooper on One Day at a Time to her 20-year marriage to rocker Eddie Van Halen, she's always come across as the girl most likely to have it all. But as this addictive, photo-packed autobiography shows, everyone loved Bertinelli—except perhaps Bertinelli, who was always painfully shy and insecure about her looks.
After marrying Van Halen, she began drinking and partying with him and eating for solace—even as her weight increased. Their marriage soon began to fray from drug use and cheating on both sides, as well as Van Halen's refusal to stop smoking, even after he'd been stricken with mouth cancer. Bertinelli found comfort, though, in her fierce love for her son Wolfie and ultimately vowed to change her life from within.
Bertinelli isn't a literary stylist, but her writing is as movingly honest and intimate as a heart-to-heart talk. As she chronicles her work and love life, and her very public weight loss with Jenny Craig, readers will root for this strong woman (now a size 6) who has more than earned her "happily ever after."
by Dan Kennedy |
REVIEWED BY MICHELLE GREEN
MEMOIR
As a kid, Kennedy dressed for Halloween as Gene Simmons. So when Atlantic Records hired him as director of creative development in 2002, he went in as a rock geek—but he emerged after a mass firing with damning tales of "mogul monsters." In this memoir, he skewers coworkers like the Little Loud Man from New Media, spills secrets of "ironic image reinvention" (imagine a heavy metal Jewel) and invites us to a spliff-fueled commercial shoot with rapper Fat Joe. ("Oh my God," says Kennedy, "they're laughing at the deli trays.") Fast-moving and darkly funny, Rock On should be a chart-topper.
by Hillary Jordan|
CRITIC'S CHOICE
FICTION
In this supremely readable debut novel set in 1940s Mississippi, the lives of the white McAllan clan become unhappily enmeshed with those of the hardworking Jacksons, the "colored tenants" on their farm. Both families have sons who were war heroes (though Ronsel Jackson is given none of the respect lavished on the dissolute Jamie McAllan), and both are touched by violent racism. But passionate love, when it crops up, brings complications for all concerned. Fluidly narrated by engaging characters—including Laura McAllan, a city-bred farm wife, and Hap Jackson, a preacher—Mudbound is packed with drama. Pick it up, then pass it on.
by Jonathan Coe |
REVIEWED BY KYLE SMITH
FICTION
In modern day England, a childless, 73-year-old woman named Rosamond dies, possibly by suicide. But she leaves behind a series of audiotapes intended for Imogen, a mysterious blind girl the family hasn't seen in years. In the tapes she describes a series of photographs spanning a lifelong friendship with her free-spirited cousin Beatrix. As they grow up, something comes between them, and Coe painstakingly builds a psychological mystery around what went wrong, evoking the suspense and dread of books such as Ian McEwan's Atonement. This brief novel makes an emotionally overwhelming case that within ordinary women's lives there are profound reserves of beauty and despair, crumbled hopes and the purest love.
1 Seemingly angelic Bertinelli did drugs with One Day bad girl MacKenzie Phillips.
2 Valerie dated Paul Shaffer because he reminded her of her teen crush, Elton John.
3 She gave up a chance to audition for Friends because she thought she was too fat.
4 On their wedding night, she fell asleep in her bridal gown, Van Halen in the bathroom.
5 During her weight loss battle, her weakness was jalapeño and cheddar cheese poppers.
Hadley Freeman, U.K. fashion expert and author of style encyclopedia The Meaning of Sunglasses, shares runway trends to run from.
ESCHEW HANDKERCHIEF HEMS "The jagged, up-and-down cut doesn't suggest fabulous boho but annoying flirt: Now you see my upper thighs—ooh, now you don't!"
VESTED DISINTEREST "Vests on women—we call them waistcoats—make you look like a puppet from Mister Rogers's land of make-believe. A puppet in a bulletproof vest, that is."
PETE DOHERTY, LISTEN UP "For guys who wear porkpie hats: You are not hanging out with Frank Sinatra in 1957. Get over it."
SPOTS LOOK BEST ON CHEETAHS "Animal prints don't imply unleashed sexuality; they cause flashbacks to Aunt Doris's Chaka Khan impersonation at cousin Steve's birthday."
LEAVE THE FISHTAILS TO ARIEL "Nothing elegant was ever described with the adjective 'fish'"
