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Biography & Autobiography. Performing Arts. Nonfiction. Humor (Nonfiction.) HTML:"Thoughtfully traces [Mara Wilson's] journey from child actress to Hollywood dropout...Who is she now? She's a writer." â??NPR's "Guide To 2016â??s Great Reads" â??Growing up, I wanted to be Mara Wilson. Where Am I Now? is a delight.â?ť â??Ilana Glazer, cocreator and star of Broad City Named a best book of the month by GoodReads and Entertainment Weekly 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 â??cuteâ?ť 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… (more)
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This isn't a chronological narrative of Wilson's life or even a
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.
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
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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.
Mara is someone I can very much relate to, especially her phobias,
I admired her as a little girl and now as a woman. I highly recommend reading this book.