Book Review: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher
Three Stars
“Star Wars was and is my job. It can’t fire me and I’ll never be able to quit, and why would I want to? (That’s both a rhetorical and a real question.)”
I really wanted to like Fisher’s unintentional swan song. The style is conversational and intimate–sometimes too intimate. But the lack of real substance and her frequent profanity detract. (Twenty f-bombs, most neither relevant nor necessary.)
“If I’d been in high school instead of doing shows with my mother … I would have lived life as a teenager [instead of] having crushes on gay men.”
Mostly this biography covers Carrie’s childhood through the immediate aftermath of the Star Wars phenomena, with reflections on fans and fandom thrown in as filler. And a strange life she lived. She grew up in the spotlight of Hollywood celebrity, was apparently raped by her stepfather when she was fifteen, and knew only that she never wanted to be in show business.
“Would he … forgive me for … being a nineteen-year-old who, despite using four-letter words with such ease and familiarity, didn’t turn out to be the pro … I seemed to be?”
The titular diary offers insight into her mind as a nineteen-year-old thrust into both a starring role and an adulterous relationship, one of which she knew would go nowhere. Here are samples:
“Heaven’s no place for one who thrives on hell.”
“You took my breath away. And now I want it back.”
“How perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?”
A 2017 Hugo Award “related work” finalist, which category is the World Science Fiction Society’s excuse to give more Hugos. If Hugos are nothing else, they’re promotional tools.
“I was always looking ahead to what I wanted to be versus who I didn’t realize I already was.”
An incredibly strong, talented person.
“Metaphor be with you.”
As a Matter of Fancy 
I suppose I’m one of the few people who wasn’t ever a fan. I wasn’t surprised that she was still using drugs at her death. Recovery from addiction is hard work that requires change.
Like many of us, she was a small person trying to live up to great expectations.