...[an] engaging, conversational, passionate biography ... Fans of traditional biographies might balk at O’Meara’s candid style and observations, but there’s never a dull moment in this beautiful, heartfelt tribute to a pioneering special-effects designer and animator and passionate call for change in the industry that forgot her.

Along the way, [O'Meara] offers clear explanations of various aspects of moviemaking ... [O'Meara's] passion serves her well in sketching Patrick’s life ... Horror buffs are likely to be most enthralled by O’Meara’s account of the genesis and development of 'Creature From the Black Lagoon' ... [Patrick's] brilliant career makes for an often-fascinating life well told by O’Meara, who views Patrick as something of a groundbreaking role model for the author’s own path as an artist and advocate for female empowerment in Hollywood...

... chatty, impassioned ... There's so much great material here — including Patrick's childhood at Hearst Castle and her early career as one of Disney's first female animators — that [Milicent Patrick's] own life story could be a film. O'Meara is a dogged researcher and a fierce partisan (she even sports a tattoo of Patrick and the Creature on her left forearm), but I must warn readers that this book should be rated 'O' for 'Ohmigod, where was an editor?' O'Meara's prose is bogged down in lame jokes and Wikipedia-level historical context. Still, I think it's worth putting up with these transgressions for Patrick's story, which, as O'Meara points out, has resonances for today, when women in Hollywood still find themselves in the company of monsters.

[An] engaging and compelling, if uneven, book ... Like Patrick and many other women, O’Meara has her own experiences of being harassed, abused and treated contemptuously by men in the film industry. Still, her book could use less of the author’s own rage and occasional fangirl gushing, however well deserved, and more about its subject ... Patrick died in 1998, at age 82, largely forgotten except for a coterie of devoted fans. O’Meara has seen to it that she won’t be forgotten again. Her book is a fierce and often very funny guide to the distaff side of geekdom.

Finding Patrick’s story turned into a treasure hunt... with wrong turns and unexpected clues and moments of discovery. O’Meara documents it all, with poignant honesty and palpable love for her subject (not to mention some very witty footnotes). What she ends up revealing are two eventful lives (one of them just getting started; O’Meara’s still in her 20s) and two remarkable women, now forever linked.

O’Meara’s personality shines through...and honestly, she seems like a lovely person. She’s empathetic, she’s humble but not a pushover, and she speaks very highly of the many friends she mentions throughout the book. But that doesn’t change the fact that, if you’re looking for a book about Milicent Patrick, this isn’t really that. In fact, for much of its 350 pages, it’s a book about Mallory O’Meara ... O’Meara’s first-person chronicling of her thought process while writing the book [is] a technique that outbalances actual information about Patrick’s life for the first 200 pages ... This storytelling crutch also makes the factual substance of the book difficult to follow, as O’Meara’s charting of her process doesn’t always fit in neatly with the arc of Patrick’s life, and the former usually ends up outshining the latter when the two diverge ... The Lady From The Black Lagoon is an engrossing read when we finally get down to the subjects of special-effects movie makeup and the behind-the-scenes power struggles that led to Patrick’s name being erased from the historical record for so many years.

Those [biographical] details alone would be enough to make this an interesting read, but O’Meara adds her own unique narrative voice, including 177 fact-filled, endlessly funny footnotes. This is a book that O’Meara was born to write, and she seamlessly meshes her own life story with that of her heroine in a way similar to how Julie Powell paid tribute to Julia Child in Julie and Julia ... Even if you’re not a fan of horror films, The Lady from the Black Lagoon is a riveting, sincere Hollywood saga that will quickly win your heart.

...[a] captivating and exhaustively researched biography ... personal anecdotes may initially appear a distraction from Patrick’s story, but O’Meara’s enthusiasm for her subject soon overcomes all objections. This is a fascinating slice of Hollywood history with a feminist slant, correcting a sexist wrong from decades ago and restoring Patrick to her rightful place of esteem.

An idiosyncratic, much-needed biography of 'a woman before her time' ... Jam-packed with many funny, goofy footnotes, this passionately written biography will do much to bring Patrick the recognition she deserves.