Cohen does a fine job of covering her career, from reporting for The Wellesley College News to toiling as a mail girl at Newsweek, onward to columnist, essay writer, novelist, screenwriter, director, playwright. Whom she dated, whom she married, whom she offended and fired — he reports all this with authority and gusto ... If judged simply as a book, as it should be, and not along a friendship continuum: whoosh. It’s juicy, opinionated, indiscreet, immodest, not terribly well organized or fact-checked.
...a breezy and very personal remembrance of her life and loves, and her ups and downs ... Cohen provides proper context for Ephron’s times and trials, and he writes engagingly when he isn’t being too clever by half. The reader grows weary of learning, for example, how Ephron and her posse dined on truffle sandwiches in Nice.
Cohen offers the nuanced perspective of a confidant ... He also remembers Ephron through what his friendship with her revealed: her love of dinner parties, how she loved to cook for friends, the interest she took in the children of her friends and family members and the insecurities she had about her physical appearance.
She Made Me Laugh is more about the good times with Ephron than the bad. Cohen is a terrific writer, and his book is a fine tribute to a fascinating woman.
