Gilpin’s written voice makes for an unforgettable read...She spins entirely original patterns of phrasing and combines wickedly clear imagery with novel cultural references to convey unique human experiences—she’ll make any noun a verb, and vice versa...Yet her writing is universal, never relying on the audience to know some obscure, niche thing...The book is riotously funny and braver than brave.
A young, accomplished performer’s life in theater, TV, and film...In this comic memoir, Gilpin, best known for her role as a female wrestler in the Netflix series GLOW, charts her journey as an actor and offers advice for other young women pursuing a similar path...The author chronicles her childhood as the daughter of show-business parents; awkward adolescence and struggles to reconcile self-doubt and artistic ambition; hard-won ascent in her chosen industry and routine endurance of humiliating tests of her professional resolve; and, finally, disappointment after the commercial failure of the film she hoped would launch her to superstardom...The writing comes alive, however, when the author digs into the specific indignities she endured during her journey through the gauntlet of endless auditions and the merciless whims of those who orchestrated them...A quirky tale of lessons learned from the world of acting.
Emmy-nominated actor Gilpin, star of Netflix’s GLOW, explores in her animated if addled debut the disappointments and triumphs of being an artist and a woman in a world that’s indifferent to both...As she moves through reflections on loneliness, shame, and finding meaning in her work, she balances profundities with humorous looks at the more mundane parts of her life, including romantic blunders in an attempted open relationship...Oftentimes, though, Gilpin’s quippy humor trips over itself, making it difficult to locate the point beneath the surfeit of zingers and extended metaphors that refer to her depression and self-doubt as nagging 'brainwomen'...This one’s best left to the fans.
