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    Wishful Drinking
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    Wishful Drinking
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    Wishful Drinking
    Ebook142 pages1 hour

    Wishful Drinking

    By Carrie Fisher

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    'Wishful Drinking is a touching and incisive account of bipolarity, addiction and motherhood.' Independent 
    ‘No motive is pure. No one is good or bad – but a hearty mix of both. And sometimes life actually gives to you by taking away.' Carrie Fisher in Wishful Drinking

    In Wishful Drinking, Carrie Fisher told the true and intoxicating story of her life with inimitable wit.

    Born to celebrity parents, she was picked to play a princess in a little movie called Star Wars when only 19 years old. "But it isn't all sweetness and light sabres." Alas, aside from a demanding career and her role as a single mother (not to mention the hyperspace hairdo), Carrie also spends her free time battling addiction and weathering the wild ride of manic depression.

    It's an incredible tale: from having Elizabeth Taylor as a stepmother, to marrying (and divorcing) Paul Simon, and from having the father of her daughter leave her for a man, to ultimately waking up one morning and finding a friend dead beside her in bed.

    Carrie Fisher's star-studded career included roles in numerous films such as The Blues Brothers and When Harry Met Sally. She was the author of four bestselling novels, Surrender in the Pink, Delusions of Grandma, The Best Awful and Postcards from the Edge, which was made into a hit film starring Shirley MacLaine and Meryl Streep. Carrie's experience with addiction and mental illness – and her willingness to talk honestly about them – made her a sought-after speaker and respected advocate. She was truly one of the most magical people to walk among us.

    Further praise for Carrie Fisher:-

    [Shockaholic] is the finest, funniest chronicler of the maddest celebrity mores.' Sunday Times
    'Fisher has a talent for lacerating insight that masquerades as carefree self-deprecation' Los Angeles Times
    'She is one of the rare inhabitants of La-La Land who can actually write' New York Times
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
    Release dateFeb 2, 2012
    ISBN9781471101090
    Author

    Carrie Fisher

    Carrie Fisher (1956–2016) became a cultural icon as Princess Leia in the first Star Wars trilogy. She starred in countless films, including Shampoo and When Harry Met Sally. She is the author of Shockaholic; Wishful Drinking (which became a hit Broadway production); and four bestselling novels, Surrender the Pink, Delusions of Grandma, The Best Awful, and Postcards from the Edge.

    Read more from Carrie Fisher

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    Reviews for Wishful Drinking

    3.5/5

    1,021 ratings155 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Carrie Fisher, daughter of America's sweethearts Eddie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds, has led an interesting life. In Wishful Drinking, she tells about growing up with famous parents (including a father whose scandals with various starlets create a pattern of what Fisher refers to as "Hollywood inbreeding"), her struggles with addiction and bipolar disorder, and the weirdness of her character Princess Leia becoming a PEZ figure.

      Fisher's writing is informal to the point of being flippant, and she shows a rare wit when it comes to the humorous turns of phrase:

      "I never realized how fun it could be to get a current partner and a past partner together and then pit them against each other. I mean, if you can't find a good book to read" (108 - 109).

      "You know how they say that religion is the opiate of the masses? Well, I took masses of opiates religiously" (99).

      While I admire Fisher eschewing the popular trend of telling her story in the model of a torrid "tell-all" that would grace the covers of the tabloids, and for turning her story into a darkly funny one rather than a sappy woe-is-me tale, when you peel away the surface, it's the same thing. It's heavy on the gossip and scandals, but even those who are riveted by such things will likely be disappointed; there is no story in here that couldn't be found on Wikipedia.

      And that, I think, was my main complaint with the book. Once you peer past the way she tells it - which is fun and witty - all that's left is gossip. When you clear through that, all that's left is very shallow observations on her life. I've never been one to dwell on celebrity's lives, so I found myself wondering, "What's the point?"

      While I appreciate this is probably very cathartic for Ms. Fisher, it would take a die-hard fan to find anything solid out of this. It was very much wading through a puddle. She didn't have anything real to say, no message to take out of it, other than, "This is my life." Which, again, might be someone else's cup of tea, but wasn't, ultimately, mine.

      Popsugar 2016: A book written by a celebrity
    • 3/5
      Funny. Properly funny. And I loved all the stuff about Paul Simon. But ultimately it's pretty flimsy fluff.
    • 4/5
      A memoir read with pitch perfect humor by the author. If you love Star Wars or memoirs on people with addiction or mental illness, this is a great quick read for you.
    • 4/5
      Further amusing and frank stories from Carrie Fisher's life.
    • 4/5
      Carrie Fisher had me laughing out loud with this book. It was a very quick and easy read and I loved the way it was written. It felt like she was talking to herself or a good friend and allowing the world to read it. It was a quick read and a lot of fun!

      I also thank Fisher for including an ode to mental illness in the author's note. I completely agree that the stigma surrounding mental illnesses needs to be broken and I appreciate the courage in her saying so.
    • 2/5


      I'm not too sure about this one either...she's rather cheeky! By her manner of writing you can tell that she is rather "disturbed"...it would be funny if it weren't so sad & pathetic.

      What is it with movie stars/rockers/famous people that give their kids drugs?
    • 4/5
      Carrie Fisher had me laughing out loud with this book. It was a very quick and easy read and I loved the way it was written. It felt like she was talking to herself or a good friend and allowing the world to read it. It was a quick read and a lot of fun!

      I also thank Fisher for including an ode to mental illness in the author's note. I completely agree that the stigma surrounding mental illnesses needs to be broken and I appreciate the courage in her saying so.
    • 3/5
      Despite the sometimes dark subject matter, Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher is ultimately a light, quick, and humorous read. Ms. Fisher's ascerbic wit and droll humor make reading about drug addiction, alcoholism and depression entertaining. Carrie Fisher is nothing if not irreverant and funny. Wishful Drinking is packed full of hilarious antedotes about some of old time Hollywood's biggest stars as well as interesting tibits such as the fact that she once dated Senator and former presidential candidate Chris Dodd. It is worth noting that Wishful Drinking can be read in one sitting. It therefore makes the perfect airplane book, but you might want to purcahse it used from Amazon. After reading Wishful Drinking, you'll wish that Carrie was one your friends so that you could call her up on whim to do lunch as she regales you with tales from her unusual Hollywood upbringing....you would be sure to ask about the Christmas when she was 15 and her mother gave both Carrie and Carrie's grandmother vibrators as gifts!
    • 3/5
      Enjoyed listening to Carrie Fisher read her memoir Wishful Thinking. Having just undergone shock therapy, Fisher shares stories about growing up with famous parents, addiction, mental illness, Star Wars, marriage and love.
    • 3/5
      This was a quick audio book. I enjoyed listening to Carrie tell her stories in her own voice.
    • 3/5
      In this rambling "memoir" (apparently made up of bits pulled from the author's stage production), Carrie Fisher talks about her life growing up as the child of two celebrities, coming to terms with her own celebrity, and her struggles with addiction and mental illness.An perhaps important confession at the outset of this review is that I've never watched Star Wars and I therefore don't worship at the altar of either Carrie Fisher or Princess Leia. But after her recent death, I read a number of articles about Fisher and she seemed like an interesting person, who embodied some feminist principles I stand behind and who spoke out as a mental illness advocate. So when I noticed this audiobook at my library, I decided to give it a whirl. Those who do love Fisher are likely to be unhappy with my review below.Perhaps because it is based on a standup routine, this memoir is not told in any kind of chronological order, and Fisher ends up repeating herself several times even though it is a short book. She starts with this opening monologue in which she pretends(?) to be spaced out after an electroshock treatment. In this part, she somehow manages to talk a lot without saying much. Fisher moves on to discussing her unusual upbringing, including an ever-changing list of stepparents. She lavishes praise on her mother (the actor Debbie Reynolds) while holding on to an almost teen-aged petulant amount of bitterness toward her father (the singer Eddie Fisher). Moving forward (but also sometimes backwards), she talks about her own career and her uneasy relationship with her own fame, several failed romantic relationships, and substance abuse and mental health issues. Other random stories dip in and out of the narrative, some of which never really feel resolved (e.g., the story of the dead man in her bed).Throughout the book, Fisher seems half spaced out, like some hippie druggie you wouldn't necessarily want to spend a lot of time with if you saw her in public and she wasn't famous. Her raspy voice and her tendency to chuckle at her own stories (even at really inappropriate times, like when relating an anecdote about how her mother was sexually molested by a neighbor as a child) only add to this effect. It wasn't really the best of audiobook experiences. Most of it wasn't particularly enlightening or funny -- but don't get me wrong, there were definitely parts where I chuckled along with her as well. At the very end when she spoke a bit more seriously about mental illness, I was behind her more. All in all, this book was an entertaining enough distraction during my commute, but I was glad it was short as I doubt I would have enjoyed a longer journey into this world. I'm also not sure that I would recommend it, except perhaps to diehard fans.
    • 5/5
      With everything Carrie Fisher has gone through in her life, you wonder how she is able to maintain her sense of humor. An extremely witty book that tells her life story as well as what it was like to be the daughter of Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher as well as her Star Wars experience. She also discusses her addictions and mental illness. Read this in one sitting. The world lost a real wit with her early death. I would have loved to have heard her thoughts on Donald Trump as President.
    • 4/5
      I've owned this for a long time, but it got lost in my ebook pile. Reading it now was bittersweet. It reads just like her interviews and standup (which isn't surprising, considering). Short, but fun.

      "She drowned in moonlight, strangled by her own bra."
    • 3/5
      Good read. She is self indulgent and droll. Yes I suppose they can go hand in hand ☺️
    • 4/5
      Actually loved this. Frank. Honest. Funny. Terrific one sitting read. Only wish I could have seen the show.
    • 3/5
      This was a very interesting window into Carrie Fisher's brain (and a scary introduction to electro-shock therapy). It was quite the ride, but her stories about Clark Gable made it all worth while!
    • 4/5
      Carrie Fisher's memoir turns her one woman show into book format and as an audiobook was an utter delight. Whether she's recounting the entangled love lives of her daughter's and her daughter's boyfriend's grandparents to determine whether they're related, sharing tales from her struggles with substance abuse and bipolar disorder, or talking about how George Lucas owns her likeness, there's plenty to laugh about. A lovely way to spend a few hours with a brilliant personality we lost too soon.
    • 4/5
      Gutsy & fun.
    • 2/5
      It's recommended by NPR as their top 100 picks for laugh out loud experience.
      I don't get Fisher's humor and I'm not going to credit her fame for the "success" of this book.
      Glad it's a fast read, though.
      Still willing to read some of her books, the less humorous ones.
    • 3/5
      Man, she IS nuts.
    • 4/5
      This is a solid, interesting, and candid memoir about growing up a celebrity child and then becoming a celebrity unexpectedly from a young age. Carrie Fisher minces no words about her odd family, her own oddities, and the addictions/mental illnesses that have plagued her adult life. Well worth reading, and it might even break your heart a little.

      Note: Get the audiobook!!! Fisher reads it herself, and you will feel yourself mourning her loss all over again.
    • 4/5
      Highly entertaining and readable. It's not a big book, but there were probably half a dozen times when I literally laughed aloud.
    • 4/5
      This live show-turned-book is just what I'd expect from Carrie Fisher: sharp and funny, with plenty of dishing about Hollywood celebrities, addiction, and mental illness. I needed a quick, readily-available audiobook for a couple of short drives, so I gave it a quick listen.
    • 4/5
      Though Carrie Fisher writes for laughs this is so sad. Alcohol and street drugs are among the worst things a bipolar person can indulge in and she was addicted before she had any name at all for her vulnerabilities. And seeing stills from SW IV she was so tiny but thought she looked fat because her face wasn't boned like a model's. It's hard to know how to rate such a book readable, sad, funny.
    • 3/5
      Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher (audio) I enjoyed listening to this book, narrated by Princess Leia. Okay, it was narrated by Carrie Fisher.

      I found it to be funny and brutally honest, but I didn't discover much that I didn't already know. Plus, I expected it to be longer. It was only a couple of hours and that was it.

      I checked this out from my local library, but if I had paid good money for it, I would probably be upset because it was so short.

      Overall, I liked it, but I didn't get all that I had expected.

      Recommended for those not familiar with Carrie Fisher's story, (does that apply to anyone?)
    • 5/5
      This book has been on my to read list for a while, it’s really hard to get past the fact Carrie is no longer with us. What an extraordinary mind.
    • 5/5
      I really like Carrie Fisher.
      She's smart, and funny, and honest.
      <3
    • 5/5
      This was absolutely amazing, especially because I did it on audio and it's narrated by Carrie. Driving around with this playing feels like Carrie is sitting in your backseat telling you her life story - and what a story it is. I'll definitely be reading her other novels after this. If you've got 3 hours, I highly recommend giving this a listen.
    • 3/5
      This was quick, amusing read.
    • 3/5
      A surprisingly candid look at the life of Carrie Fisher. Sometimes serious, often funny, and generally entertaining throughout.