Summary
In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood—along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again.
In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”).
In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.
Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”).
Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.
From the Hardcover edition.
My Spoiler-Free Review
In a Nutshell: I really liked this audiobook! I mostly listened to it instead of reading because I hadn’t listened to an audiobook before, so I wanted to try the experience. I remember Lauren Graham from Gilmore Girls and Parenthood, so I was excited to get into her second novel. There were some minor issues throughout listening to the audiobook, but nothing I couldn’t handle.
What I Loved: I loved hearing Lauren’s inner descriptions about the original Gilmore Girls show in 2000-2007, all the way to the revival in 2016. While I didn’t like the revival very much, it was nice hearing about her experiences meeting her TV daughter, Alexis Bledel (Rory Gilmore). I also liked hearing about her theater work earlier in her career, with The Barn Theater in Augusta, GA. She didn’t struggle as a young actress, but her hustle of working two jobs, waitressing, bartending, while going to school was interesting to hear. I’m kind of going through the same hustle of working for your dream, so that was relatable to me. Also, hearing about her embarrassing moments in theater was kind of sad because it showed the choices she’d made, made her decide what kind of actress she wants to be.
What I Wanted More of: I think I wanted more variety in my listening experience, if that makes sense. Because Lauren is narrating her own work, in her own words, in her own context, while it was nice to hear everything through her perspective, I wanted more in how she was narrating. It was mostly all one-level, like the same level of witty, charming humor for each chapter. Maybe more personal stories outside of acting would have helped divide the narration? The awkward phone conversations in between some chapters was a little weird, I could have done without those.
Writing Style/Narration: Like I said, Lauren’s narration was good but it was all on one-level. She’s already known for being witty and charming and sugary-sweet, so when you multiply that personality into a book, it gets to be a little much. It was almost as if she had to keep her ‘Lorelai’ persona in her novel to maintain the story. I found myself spacing out of the audio until an interesting topic came back.
Final Thoughts: My first audiobook experience was really good. I had a lot of trouble figuring out the technical aspects of listening, like figuring out where the additional photos were when Lauren had kept saying “see Photo 1”. But as for the actual book itself, it was really good; not great, but still a good, easy, comedy, summer read.
Rating: 4/5 stars
Have you read or listened to Talking as Fast as I Can? Comment below!
Follow me on:
Thanks for reading!
Like this:
Like Loading...
