I was a little bit disappointed in this book. I did find it interesting that she talks A LOT about Rob Lowe and in his book, he doesn't mention Melissa very often. I thought his book was a lot kinder on the subject.
I LOVED Little House when I was young - LOVED it! At least until Laura got older, then I didn't like the way she was portrayed on the show. When I saw this book was out, I really wanted to read it. I don't know what I was expecting. I know her life wasn't all sunlight, roses, and wagon wheels but somehow, I just didn't get into the spirit of this memoir.
I didn't mind the name dropping, though. I mean, that's part of the reason I read the book! ( )

'Little House on the Prairie' and Melissa Gilbert always bring a childhood friend named Sharon to mind. She liked Melissa so much that she wrote to her during a classroom exercise on letter writing--and she got a signed photo back. Oddly, though, I never thought of Melissa Gilbert as a redhead, so when she would refer to herself that way, it was a bit confusing. I knew the story about her brother Jonathan being on 'Little House' and that being his only acting gig; I didn't know he'd cut himself off from their family at some point--that's sad.
The Good: The beginning of the book is written in an engaging style (the last few chapters about SAG etc. not so much so). Melissa is very honest about her struggles and her faults. She balances the good things with the bad things that have happened in her life. She also now seems to realize that much of her personal life centered around her being adopted as a child (and feeling as if she needed to earn love or that she could be returned if she wasn't perfect) and around not being able to talk about her feelings during her childhood (which led to stuffing her feelings). She does seem committed to her relationship with Bruce Boxleitner and working through the issues they have--at least as of the time of the writing of this book.
The Bad: Her romantic relationships seem to be very repetitive--just change the name of the guy (Rob Lowe, Bo Brinkman, Bruce Boxleitner). She uses a lot of profanity (something you wouldn't expect based on her prairie image). There's a lot of name dropping. The chronology is sometimes a bit meandering. ( )

This was a nice read. It didn't go into as much depth one the subjects I would have expected, like Gilbert's experiences on Little House. It did go into a lot of detail about her relationships, especially her relationship with Rob Lowe.
It's always interesting to me to read just how well everyone knows everyone else in Hollywood, or so it seems anyway.
I liked how real this was. The experiences weren't too overdramatic, and didn't have hidden meanings. Melissa Gilbert isn't perfect and she knows it and accepts it. That's so much better than just trying to push things under the rug and cover them up. ( )

Not a great book-- more name-dropping and 'this person was drunk' and other nonsense. Some humor but sort of pointless. ( )

I really loved Little House. I thoroughly enjoyed Alison Arngrim's 'Confessions of a Prairie Bitch'. But this book? Name-dropping, party-going boredom and tons of gossip. I felt for the little girl she was, told to hold it all in and pretend to be perfect, but the book itself wasn't worth my time to finish. ( )

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