A Paper Life--#4 finished

This is Tatum O'Neal's autobiography and it is pretty shocking as far as how she explains how she grew up, her marriage to John McEnroe and her drug addictions. I had to check her wikipedia page just to see what it said. Her father Ryan O'Neal of course denied what she wrote, there was no statement from John McEnroe though. John McEnroe's wikipedia page barely mentions O'Neal and nothing about his use of steroids, I am guessing since he is a broadcaster now those things just don't get written up there.

The book portrays O'Neal as the victim and I believe that when it talks about her upbringing. Her mom was an alcoholic and was in no shape to raise her or her brother and throw in some hippie free love and drugs in the mix and there you go. She says her father rescued them but he wasn't much better. He was jealous of her getting attention, he basically ignored the kids while sleeping with everything he could and he was on at least pot and probably worse stuff as well. It was basically a horrible upbringing. It is a rough book to read given what she went through.

Now I also don't think she was quite as innocent as she is letting on in the book either, this was her chance to set the record and I am not sure I completely believe it all. I have to admit that she is/was hurting for money so writing a book with some blockbuster stuff probably helped a lot. On her wikipedia page it mentioned she was picked up 3 years ago with cocaine and crack and a crack pipe. This is really too bad because she has not conquered her addition. At the end of the book she talked about doing the AA 12 step program but I guess it didn't take. Hopefully, she will stay clean. She has had a tough life and it probably will always be tough for her from the sounds of it.

I am not a big celebrity person and really only ordered this book because there were 5 previous Paperbackswap owners so I would read it and pass it along. I really enjoy following the travels of my PBS books. I have already posted this book and there are 4 or 5 copies a head of it so it probably won't move for a while but that is no problem.

I am still working on The Hour I First Believed, just getting past 100 pages in. I also started The Reader yesterday. I will probably look for a 3rd book to get started on also.