Where Am I Now?: True Stories of Girlhood and Accidental Fame
Published by Penguin Random House Audio
4/5
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About this audiobook
A former child actor best known for her starring roles in Matilda and Mrs. Doubtfire, Mara Wilson has always felt a little young and out of place: as the only kid on a film set full of adults, the first daughter in a house full of boys, a Valley girl in New York and a neurotic in California, and a grown-up the world still remembers as a little girl. Tackling everything from what she learned about sex on the set of Melrose Place, to discovering in adolescence that she was no longer "cute" enough for Hollywood, these essays chart her journey from accidental fame to relative (but happy) obscurity. They also illuminate universal struggles, like navigating love and loss, and figuring out who you are and where you belong. Candid, insightful, moving, and hilarious, Where Am I Now? introduces Mara Wilson as a brilliant new chronicler of the experience that is growing up female.
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Reviews for Where Am I Now?
168 ratings13 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I cannot believe I failed to pre-order this book. I follow Ms. Wilson on Twitter and knew the book was coming out this week. I’ve been very excited to read it because I know she is a great storyteller and writer. I figured it would be insightful and entertaining, and even though my to-be-read pile is absurd at the moment, I bought this yesterday and started reading it immediately.
It did not disappoint.
Ms. Wilson is an extraordinarily talented storyteller. In this collection of essays, she shares many deeply personal stories about her time not just as a child actor (which is how many people likely know about her) but as an adolescent and young adult. Her stories are relatable even to people who haven’t experienced the exact same challenges she has – such as losing her mother as a young girl, or going through puberty after being a well-known child actor.
I found myself giggling quite a bit, and also tearing up a few times. I also got very excited about the essays that talked about show choir, because choir factored very heavily in my high school days. But I think what is sticking with me most is how sincere and kind the writing is. Ms. Wilson doesn’t use sarcasm at all. As someone who is overly sarcastic and intentionally (and unintentionally) snarky, it’s lovely to read such engaging writing that doesn’t need to rely on any of that.
I could write more, but honestly I’d rather just enjoy what I got out of each of these essays, and simply say that I hope you’ll read this book and experience the joy of it for yourself, in your own way. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I wanted to like this memoir more than I did. I have to wonder if it was the fault more of the editor than of the author herself. Despite the fact that we go over and over the author's creative credentials, writing, storytelling etc - this book reads like a transcribed oral history. The chapters are loosely organized by theme and there is no linear progression of time like in typical memoirs. This would be okay if there was some thread to hold the organization together - but instead we double back triple back in time over and over. Is she at the boarding school mentioned two chapters ago? no she hasn't even started! Her father is remarried? How did that happen? Is she suddenly back living in New York? Isn't this new boyfriend the one we met 6 chapters ago? I was finding myself constantly having to figure out where I was in terms of her life events. I would have enjoyed all the stories so much more if I hadn't had to work so hard to figure out where we had been dropped into at the beginning of each chapter.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging Where am I now? is - not because I had any doubts about Mara Wilson's writing (I loved her story on The Toast in March 2015), but because I don't usually like memoirs or collections of stories.This isn't a chronological narrative of Wilson's life or even a specific thread of her history. It's a collection of essays or stories on different (sometimes fairly broad) topics that meander a bit but always ultimately present a touching and funny picture of how Wilson came to be who she is, often with insight about the world around us.Topics include feminism, sex, God, obsessive-compulsive disorder, Mean Girls, family, grief, performing on stage, and others - including, of course, those reasons most of the public will know of her: Hollywood and the movies she made.Of course, these are all stories about herself, her own history, so many things appear many times, from different angles. Her mother's death when she was 8, or her relationship with acting, or how her anxiety disorder affected her choices, to name a few.I vaguely knew from Wilson's essay on The Toast and the retweets I'd see of her on Twitter that our views and experiences overlap a little, but it was a little strange to read these stories and realize how closely what she knew or did as a kid/teenager matched up with my own nerd and performing arts circles. Plus the mental health difficulties dogging her since she was small (anxiety, depression). It's weird to see myself in the page, but that certainly helped my enjoyment of the stories: oh, yes, i relate so much to that, I kept thinking. (Except when I couldn't. The sex stories were a little uncomfortable for me, as a result of the identifying, because of my own asexuality. Ha ha? But even her stories of working on the set of Matilda or doing promo for Miracle on 34th Street were based on nuggets of truth about childhood.)Anyway, I liked this a lot. I'm glad I took a chance on it, read the first few pages out of curiosity and kept going. I'm looking forward to reading more of Mara Wilson's stories someday.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This memoir was honest and vulnerable, but the essays felt disjointed to me. She'd talk about her mother's death and then a few minutes later she moved on to talking on skype with her sister.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Mara Wilson reading her own stories made the connection to this book all the more meaningful.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5When I was a wee one, I loved all of the Mara's films everytime I saw her face on the screen it was like seeing an old friend. As a grown-up reading Mara's book made me feel as if I was connecting with that special old friend again.
Mara is someone I can very much relate to, especially her phobias, anxiety and dealing with OCD (not the "does this annoy you" Facebook test where one colour doesn't match with the other, I mean clinically diagnosed OCD which can essentially ruin your life). I especially loved that part of the book and I admire her for writing so openly about her life, including both the good and the bad parts.
I admired her as a little girl and now as a woman. I highly recommend reading this book. - Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The audiobook was great. My favorite bit was far and away the section about filming Matilda, but the whole book was interesting. As someone who doesn't love stories about awkward situations, it got a little cringeworthy at times, but I think for people who don't mind awkward it would be perfect. I think a lot of our teens would actually really love this too.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This is a genuinely beautiful work from Mara Wilson. The entire time I read it, I could hear it in her voice (or was it the voice she uses for the Faceless Old Woman?). At times I laughed and at times I cried but the whole time I was moved and engaged.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I loved this.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/53,5 out of 5 stars from me. This audiobook is narrated by the author herself, and she did a great job with it, I love her voice and wish there were many more audiobooks out there narrated by her.
T.W. for OCD ,Anxciety and Loss of parent
This is a memoir in the form of a series of essays,that jump back an forth in time,handling a variation of topics and events that have been of importance to the author.
She sure can string a sentece together ,and I think this book is quite accesable for most readers. No need to have been a superfan of her work as a child actress or to have seen all her movies to get something out of this. Some of the essays I found very interesting, some moving, some entertaining, some heartwarming, and yet some bored me a bit. Some I would give a roaring five stars to,and others I could have done without.I think I had expected a bit more from this book, but it was still a good one. And I liked the vulnerability and thoughtfulness of Mara . She doesn't think she is cool, but I think she is! There are great messages in here,about self worth,about how it is ok to make mistakes , and how important it is to ask for help when you need it. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A former child star looks back at the events of her childhood, teen years, and early twenties.From hearing about her here and there, I thought Mara Wilson sounded like an interesting person, so I was intrigued when I saw this memoir. It's an interesting read, organized topically rather than chronologically, so it feels like going through her life strand by strand, so to speak. She writes evocatively about her mother's struggle with breast cancer, her own issues with OCD and other mental health issues, and about the death of Robin Williams, her former Mrs. Doubtfire costar. The book is at times poignant, at times funny. Readers who enjoy this sort of memoir will probably enjoy this one.Edit | More
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Autobiographies; where we peek into someone else's life with no shame. Wilson's story was a thoroughly enjoyable read, even though I empathized as Ms. Wilson discusses her personal anxieties and obsessions, and later discovering that they are treatable. But I particularly like how she discovers that her true love is telling stories and doing stand-up story telling. She speaks to how being a very young actor sets up expectations in later life, within herself and with others who saw her movies. And she talks about, even though she was considered |cute" by casting directors in her youth, she is not considered "pretty enough" as she grows into her teens, giving no credit to her acting talent. I mean, really, how many of us were pretty in our teens? She speaks of some of the people she worked with, especially her love of Robin Williams. She takes these stories as her stand up material giving them a wry, comedic twist, making the folly of our human experiences comparable.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I really enjoyed this, learning more about Mara Wilson and her life. Like others of my generation, I watched her movies as a kid, but never knew much else about her. It was interesting to get this glimpse into her life, and especially since she's only a few months younger than I am, it was cool to get her perspective on things that I remember from my childhood/teen years. If you're going to read this, I really recommend the audiobook, because she narrates it herself.