Book 31 of my 2015 Reading Challenge
read from May 26 - June 18
Going Off Script by Giuliana Rancic
Summary (via Goodreads)
Giuliana Rancic is best known for interviewing A-listers on the red carpet and E! News, skewering their shocking style choices on Fashion Police, and giving viewers a front row seat to her marriage and family life on her reality show, Giuliana & Bill. What fans may not know is that she learned English from Eddie Murphy, got her American citizenship so she could be a beauty queen, and used to have a bad habit of stealing cars for fun.
Giuliana bares this and so much more in her hilarious, warm, and inspiring memoir, Going Off Script. From a young age she dreamed of being a TV anchorwoman but, because of her inclination toward mischief and away from schoolwork, her path to her dream job was far from straight. After a fateful (and mortifying) encounter with the late Senator Ted Kennedy, she learned that Hollywood news was where she belonged. Thankfully for readers, this epiphany led her to a bounty of LA misadventures (featuring notables such as Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Russell Crowe) and an entertaining behind-the-scenes perspective on what our favorite celebrities are really like.
In spite of her glamorous Hollywood life, however, Giuliana could not escape some rockier times, including her battles with infertility and breast cancer. Here, for the first time, she reveals the whole truth behind her well-publicized struggles, and the highly controversial decisions she had to make. And, of course, at the heart of it all are the two loves of her life who keep her strong through everything, her husband Bill and her son, Duke.
Candid, funny, and poignant, Going Off Script is an autobiography that proves you don’t always have to follow the rules to get the life you’ve always dreamed of.
Giuliana bares this and so much more in her hilarious, warm, and inspiring memoir, Going Off Script. From a young age she dreamed of being a TV anchorwoman but, because of her inclination toward mischief and away from schoolwork, her path to her dream job was far from straight. After a fateful (and mortifying) encounter with the late Senator Ted Kennedy, she learned that Hollywood news was where she belonged. Thankfully for readers, this epiphany led her to a bounty of LA misadventures (featuring notables such as Johnny Depp, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Russell Crowe) and an entertaining behind-the-scenes perspective on what our favorite celebrities are really like.
In spite of her glamorous Hollywood life, however, Giuliana could not escape some rockier times, including her battles with infertility and breast cancer. Here, for the first time, she reveals the whole truth behind her well-publicized struggles, and the highly controversial decisions she had to make. And, of course, at the heart of it all are the two loves of her life who keep her strong through everything, her husband Bill and her son, Duke.
Candid, funny, and poignant, Going Off Script is an autobiography that proves you don’t always have to follow the rules to get the life you’ve always dreamed of.
My Opinion
I liked that it was real and actually embarrassing, not the 'oh no I fell down once aren't I a complete mess?' stories some actresses write. She was funny too. However, it was weird to me that her profession is to dig into celebrities' lives but she doesn't go very deep into her own; it almost felt detached, like she was reporting on someone else as opposed to actually living it.
Her childhood was interesting but the book really picked up for me when her life changed. Whether that's because of a shift in her or because that's when I started knowing her and could picture the situations in my mind, I'm not sure. It could also be because things that were funny to her about her childhood fell flat or sounded mean. I would have the same issue describing my childhood because my family has a very warped sense of humor and used it to get through some tough situations. If I told someone about the tricks we would play on my mom after she had her stroke, such as adjusting the height on her cane, we would sound like psychopaths even though I promise my mom found it funny. So I'm not judging but am pointing it out because I could see other people being put off by some of the anecdotes.
A Few Quotes from the Book
"Weirdly enough, for all my insecurity and self-consciousness, still burning inside me was that same stubborn conviction I'd had since the age of seven, that I was meant to be on camera. I wanted everyone to look at me; I just didn't want anyone to see me."
"Three days in, I had to say things were going pretty well in L.A.: I was technically homeless but no longer entirely friendless, Johnny Depp had admired my body, sort of, and I was not yet a prostitute."
"I became the go-to girl once the producers realized that I was game for just about anything, whether it was letting Hulk Hogan pick me up and spin me around or challenging Neil Patrick Harris to an impromptu juggling contest at the SAG awards. (NPH won, but I'm self-taught and he obviously received professional training at an elite clown college or something.)"
"Battling cancer and becoming a mother at the same time changed not only how I looked at the world, but how I moved through it. There wasn't room in my life anymore for cynicism or selfishness."
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