What happens when a memoir promises a reckoning but delivers armor instead?
In this Babes in Bookland bonus episode, I'm joined by my friend Lizzie to dig into Hayden Panettiere's memoir, This Is Me: A Reckoning. Lizzie listened to the audiobook first, and warned me it was painful, so I braced for a gutting, Christina Applegate style read, and came out with a completely different experience of the same book. That gap between the two of us became the real story of this episode.
Hayden rose to fame before she was old enough to understand what fame meant, from Remember the Titans to Heroes to two Golden Globe nominated seasons of Nashville, all while quietly carrying the pressure of being Hollywood's It Girl. Her memoir promises postpartum depression, addiction, domestic abuse, and loss, and we both went in rooting for her. What we found instead was a book that kept circling its own most painful moments without ever landing on them, a codependent relationship with her mother that never gets fully named, and a custody decision that's never quite explained. We talk through what worked, why the cover and author photo tell you almost everything you need to know before you even open the book, and why they both think the deeper, more vulnerable version of this memoir is still a few years away.
Listen to the full episode to hear us work through it, and let us know: would you recommend this one, or wait for the sequel?
","author_name":"Alex Frnka - Bookclub Host"}