roenfoe's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
lighthearted
sad
medium-paced
4.25
If you read The Princess Diarist, please do so on audio! It is read by Carrie Fisher herself in accompaniment with her daughter Billie Lourd. It made the narrative and poetry in this work go the extra mile for me, I can't recommend it enough.
I really enjoyed The Princess Diarist, but I feel a must clarify: this is less so about the general diaries of Carrie Fisher on the set of Star Wars and more of a breakdown of her troubling relationship with Harrison Ford at the time. This book contains in-depth discussion of their emotionally abusive relationship that would absolutely be triggering for readers who have been through something similar. Hearing about what 19 year-old Carrie would stoop to, in order to please Harrison, reminded me of myself in early relationships and broke my heart. The difference is that Harrison was married and was over a decade older than her. There is so much to unpack with what their relationship consisted of that Carrie tries to discuss by brushing off that it was a long time ago. However, when we get to the section of the work that contains Carrie's poetry from the time, it is abundantly clear how much this relationship destroyed her happiness and self-confidence. This is an extremely sobering part of the book that really changed the way I see Harrison Ford for good.
The rest of the book contains funny and heartwarming anecdotes about how they chose Leia's hairstyle, her sweet gay makeup artist, and various shenanigans she has gotten up to since the films. It felt exactly like being on the phone with a fun and whacky aunt. I absolutely loved this book and feel like I understand Carrie a lot better because of it. She was a real firecracker both then and late in life. I would recommend this book for fans of Carrie, but maybe not as much fans of Star Wars. It's much more about her than it is about the films, but I personally found that to be a good thing.
I really enjoyed The Princess Diarist, but I feel a must clarify: this is less so about the general diaries of Carrie Fisher on the set of Star Wars and more of a breakdown of her troubling relationship with Harrison Ford at the time. This book contains in-depth discussion of their emotionally abusive relationship that would absolutely be triggering for readers who have been through something similar. Hearing about what 19 year-old Carrie would stoop to, in order to please Harrison, reminded me of myself in early relationships and broke my heart. The difference is that Harrison was married and was over a decade older than her. There is so much to unpack with what their relationship consisted of that Carrie tries to discuss by brushing off that it was a long time ago. However, when we get to the section of the work that contains Carrie's poetry from the time, it is abundantly clear how much this relationship destroyed her happiness and self-confidence. This is an extremely sobering part of the book that really changed the way I see Harrison Ford for good.
The rest of the book contains funny and heartwarming anecdotes about how they chose Leia's hairstyle, her sweet gay makeup artist, and various shenanigans she has gotten up to since the films. It felt exactly like being on the phone with a fun and whacky aunt. I absolutely loved this book and feel like I understand Carrie a lot better because of it. She was a real firecracker both then and late in life. I would recommend this book for fans of Carrie, but maybe not as much fans of Star Wars. It's much more about her than it is about the films, but I personally found that to be a good thing.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
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