Tuesday, September 2, 2014

Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty by Diane Keaton (audio)

Let's Just Say It Wasn't Pretty

Overview From Barnes and Noble:

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
From Academy Award winner and bestselling author Diane Keaton comes a candid, hilarious, and deeply affecting look at beauty, aging, and the importance of staying true to yourself—no matter what anyone else thinks.
 
Diane Keaton has spent a lifetime coloring outside the lines of the conventional notion of beauty. In Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty, she shares the wisdom she’s accumulated through the years as a mother, daughter, actress, artist, and international style icon. This is a book only Diane Keaton could write—a smart and funny chronicle of the ups and downs of living and working in a world obsessed with beauty.

In her one-of-a-kind voice, Keaton offers up a message of empowerment for anyone who’s ever dreamed of kicking back against the “should”s and “supposed to”s that undermine our pursuit of beauty in all its forms. From a mortifying encounter with a makeup artist who tells her she needs to get her eyes fixed to an awkward excursion to Victoria’s Secret with her teenage daughter, Keaton shares funny and not-so-funny moments from her life in and out of the public eye.

For Diane Keaton, being beautiful starts with being true to who you are, and in this book she also offers self-knowing commentary on the bold personal choices she’s made through the years: the wide-brimmed hats, outrageous shoes, and all-weather turtlenecks that have made her an inspiration to anyone who cherishes truly individual style—and catnip to paparazzi worldwide. She recounts her experiences with the many men in her life—including Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Al Pacino, and Sam Shepard—shows how our ideals of beauty change as we age, and explains why a life well lived may be the most beautiful thing of all.

Wryly observant and as fiercely original as Diane Keaton herself, Let’s Just Say It Wasn’t Pretty is a head-turner of a book that holds up a mirror to our beauty obsessions—and encourages us to like what we see.

My thoughts:
Lighthearted and fun, with a serious undertone and real advice amongst the anecdotes.  I love that Keaton herself does the reading, it was like sitting down for a meal with a friend and listening to her tell you about her past.  What it was like growing up in her house and in her shoes, the silly things she did to try to achieve the cookie cutter sameness of the accepted beauty ideals (sleeping with a clothes pin on her nose!) while learning to accept herself for who she was and what she looked like.

Sometimes when a celebrity dishes on past relationships, it seems like they are going too far, but Keaton kept it friendly.  I am sure Woody Allen would feel no embarrassment about the fact that he didn't like to get his feet sandy or Warren Beatty wouldn't mind people know that he likes to take care of his hair.  There were no tell all's of what went right or wrong in her romantic life, just deep friendship and affection for the past.

Being a parent, teaching your children to go into the future, and rehabbing house after house looking for the perfect home while wearing a hat and a turtleneck, Diane Keaton seems like the person she has always been with no desire to change for anyone else.  She is on a path to accept herself and wants everyone else to accept themselves as they are.


Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9780812994261
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 4/29/2014
  • Pages: 224

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