Note: Thank you to NetGalley, Riverdale Avenue Books, and author Jeff Ryan for the advanced reader copy of this book. This review will also be posted on NetGalley. What follows is my unbiased review of the book.
In the epilogue, author Jeff Ryan admits he talked to no one to write this book. That’s both good and bad. Carrie Fisher wrote enough about her life that there was already plenty of material to cull from. Some of this also might have to do with the privacy Carrie’s daughter Billie has sought following her mother’s death, and the fact that she disowned some of her family for writing tell-all books once she had passed on. However, that also means most of this information is out there already.
Your Worshipfulness, Princess Leia promised to “tell the story of how a teenage Carrie Fisher created Star Wars’s greatest character, Princess Leia” on the promotional description I read prior to choosing the book. What I thought was going to be a book centered on Leia and how Carrie Fisher helped develop and portray the character turned out to be another biography of Carrie Fisher, with no real new information.
Ryan seems to be making the argument that Leia was Carrie and Carrie was Leia as much as she tried to distance herself from her. Carrie felt protective of this character, and she imbued her with a steely confidence that Carrie just didn’t have. In some ways, Leia was who Carrie wished she could be. Later in life, Carrie became what is known as a “script doctor” and worked with many different people improving scripts for movies and television with little to no credit. She did work with George Lucas on the three prequels, which is probably why Padme Amidala had some great lines.
The book doesn’t just cover Carrie’s work around the Star Wars universe, though. It’s a biography that delves into her family life, mental illness, drug addiction, and relationships. Ryan does a decent job assembling information Carrie wrote herself in her books, and aligning what was autobiographical with the events in her life. Carrie was always an open book to the world, which helped begin a public dialogue about mental illness where it had been a source of shame.
Your Worshipfulness, Princess Leia is a good book, especially if you haven’t read all of Carrie Fisher’s own works. It builds on that to create a comprehensive biography of the star and her very unique Hollywood family. It’s not uplifting, as Carrie struggled most of her life, but I found I understood her a little more at the end of it, as well as appreciating all she put into creating the character of Leia Organa.
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Categories: Book Reviews
This one seems – based on your review – to merit between two-and-a-half to three stars. Is the book well-written, at least? Considering that the author didn’t conduct any interviews, instead basing his work on Fisher’s own autobiographies and other available resources, I hope that at least his writing style compensates for the “no new interviews” with people who knew the popular actor who played Princess Leia.
If someone didn’t want to find all of Fisher’s own books and read them (Postcards From the Edge is not available on Kindle), plus the books written by others, it’s a good source for that material as its been condensed and edited. The author does try to show how much of Fisher’s “fiction” was real. So there’s work there. It’s sort of the Cliff Notes version of everything that she’s written or been written about her.
That’s an interesting way to describe it: “CliffsNotes.” (Weird how Wiley formats its title for study guides.)
Fun fact: I’ve never used “CliffsNotes”!
Your explanation about “Your Worshipfulness” and why it might be worthwhile for many readers makes perfect sense. Thanks!
As we used to say in Epinions, I rate this comment “VH.” (That’s the highest rating that I, a mere “Top Reviewer,” can give you.) 🙂