A slender memoir composed in second person, directly addressed to the actress and elegantly translated from the French by Molly Ringwald ... This memoir is written with a rare sense of intimacy and devotion. It warmly captures the highlights of Maria Schneider’s life ... Unsparing ... In this post-#MeToo era, Vanessa Schneider’s evenhanded portrayal of this daring actress of the 1970s is a refreshing one. For once, a young woman is not placed on an impossibly high pedestal, where she is unfairly worshiped for her beauty and then cruelly defiled for our entertainment. Instead, Maria Schneider is presented with both her faults and her charms. In that way, this is a generous account of a rare and complicated cinematic star.
Hazy ... Translated by actress Ringwald, this is an intriguing addition to the growing body of literature reexamining women’s agency through a post-#MeToo lens.
A touching tribute ... Vanessa, a novelist, reporter, and commentator on French politics, writes this memoir like a love letter ... Vanessa chronicles this fascinating story in often affectionate yet unflinching language, a quality that carries through in Ringwald’s spare, poignant translation from French ... This stunning tale of Maria Schneider and her battles is stark yet consistently loving—and unforgettable.
Poignant ... Schneider writes dispassionately though not without affection, providing a blunt perspective on her complicated relationship with her cousin, a woman haunted by addiction and exploitation who sipped champagne until the end. The result is a bittersweet and gritty salute to a misunderstood screen legend.
