Wildflower

September 14, 2015
For those seeking gory details of film star Barrymore’s misspent youth, there’s not much to be found in this low-key memoir. Instead, she brings honesty, sweetness, and humor to the tale of how she fought to earn the hard-won wisdom that steered her from being a 12-year-old former child star to becoming a beloved actor. When Barrymore wisely gets emancipated at 14—her father was homeless and her mother didn’t even know enough to pack a lunch for her on school days—she’s a high school dropout who lacks basic survival skills. Mastering doing her own laundry truly gives the defeated Barrymore a new lease on life: she gains confidence and purpose while also educating herself, devouring book after book at the laundromat. Of course her trademark goofy oddball humor is present as she recalls teenage loves, but there’s also growth and a blossoming realization that she can turn her love of work and her desires to do something meaningful into a career. After being welcomed back as an actor and then a producer, Barrymore has shifted to a life that’s less Hollywood-driven, focusing on her cosmetics company, Flower Beauty, and her home life. In the end, Barrymore has written a warm and inviting narrative. Agent: Simon Green, CAA.

Actress Drew Barrymore delivers a sprightly, bubbly account of her life in a series of anecdotes with numerous jump cuts in time and location. The effort is, at moments, as entrancing as champagne bubbles, but that lightness of spirit is compromised by the rampant use of vulgar language. The famous child-actress-turned-adult is cheery, but she undercuts her message of lessons learned with disjointed, confusing prose. This second memoir by Barrymore may simply not have been needed at this time. The audiobook may appeal to fans; otherwise, it may be one to pass. W.A.G. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine