Wildflower

Drew Barrymore

Book - 2015

"Award-winning actress Drew Barrymore shares funny, insightful, and profound stories from her past and present told from the place of happiness she's achieved today. Wildflower is a portrait of Drew's life in stories as she looks back on the adventures, challenges, and incredible experiences of her earlier years. It includes tales of living on her own at 14 (and how laundry may have saved her life), getting stuck in a gas station overhang on a cross country road trip, saying goodbye to her father in a way only he could have understood, and many more adventures and lessons that have led her to the successful, happy, and healthy place she is today. It is the first book Drew has written about her life since the age of 14. "...--

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Subjects
Published
New York : Dutton [2015]
Language
English
Main Author
Drew Barrymore (-)
Physical Description
x, 276 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
ISBN
9781101983799
  • Preface
  • Birds Of Paradise
  • Flying High
  • Joshua Tree
  • My Beautiful Laundrette
  • Taurus
  • The School Of E.T.
  • Bronco
  • The Blue Angel
  • Flower Life
  • Adam
  • The Acting Lesson
  • Flossy
  • Domestic Bliss
  • Jumping Ship
  • Dear Olive
  • The Seagull
  • Toddette
  • Klutz
  • Germany
  • India
  • Post Pardon Me
  • The Royal Hawaiian
  • Door Number One
  • Dearest Frankie
  • Outward Bound
  • Africa
  • In-Law Jackpot
  • All-Ages Party
  • Acknowledgments
Review by New York Times Review

DR. KAY SCARPETTA, who keeps US coming back to Patricia Cornwell's sprawling crime novels, is one tough broad. As chief medical examiner for the state of Massachusetts, she has no trouble dealing with the gory sights and smells of dead bodies and violent crimes. "A select few of us come into this world not bothered by gruesomeness," she says. "In fact we're drawn to it, fascinated, intrigued." What she can't handle are threats to the person she loves best in the world, her brilliant, prickly niece, Lucy. In DEPRAVED HEART (Morrow/ HarperCollins, $28.99), Scarpetta is on the scene at the "accidental" death of a movie mogul's daughter when she receives a disturbing surveillance video shot in 1997 by Carrie Grethen, Lucy's mentor (and first love) at the F.B.I. Academy in Quantico, Va. Because it suggests that Lucy was in possession of an illegal firearm, Scarpetta worries herself sick that Carrie, a malicious psychopath, will use the clip to undermine her niece's career. But for fuzzy reasons, Scarpetta keeps her worries to herself, unwilling to share them with her husband, an F.B.I. profiler, or her cop friend, Pete Marino. Not even when the F.B.I. comes down on Lucy. Once Scarpetta decides to ferret out Lucy's secrets, the novel becomes more of a psychological thriller than a crime drama, although that suspicious death isn't entirely forgotten. Scarpetta follows the autopsy on her computer screen and even wades into the murky waters of "invisibility technology," hoping to learn how "augmented reality or optical camouflage" might have figured in the case. But the real focus is on Scarpetta's obsession with Carrie: "For years she'd invaded my psyche I waited for her to torture and murder someone- I constantly looked for her when I was with Lucy and when I wasn't. Then I stopped." And then she started again. CHARLES FINCH'S VICTORIAN whodunits, with their resolutely aristocratic sensibility, can be a guilty pleasure for the more plebeian reader. His gentleman sleuth, Charles Lenox, is a partner in a London detective agency, but he's also the brother of a baronet and is married to the daughter of an earl. In HOME BY NIGHTFALL (Minotaur, $25.99), a sterling addition to this well-polished series, all of London is talking about the renowned German pianist who disappeared from his dressing room after a concert. But before Lenox can apply his wits to that locked-room puzzle, he must head to the family estate in Sussex, hoping to console his grief-stricken brother after the sudden death of his wife. A series of odd, mysterious thefts in the nearby town of Markethouse prove the perfect distraction for Sir Edmund Lenox, as well as a chance for Finch to dazzle us with his amusing studies of country folk and his offbeat approach to historical particulars. So while we're treated to all the showy details of an elaborate ball at an ancestral manor, we're also beguiled by tidbits about the importance in Victorian society of wearing a hat and the remarkable contributions of the era's fanatical amateur geologists to the field of natural science. OUTSIDE of a Marvel comic book, can a crime story have too many heroes - even if they're all great guys? Absolutely, and Robert Crais's latest novel, THE PROMISE (Putnam, $27.95), is a case in point. His go-to protagonist, the California private eye Elvis Cole, is first on the job when an executive at a company that manufactures the chemical ingredients for heavy explosives hires him to find its top engineer, a woman who has gone looking for answers after her son was killed in a terrorist bombing. You don't want to fool around with chemical weaponry, international terrorists or a vengeful mother, so Cole recruits his scary friend, Joe Pike, a soldier of fortune who brings along his own scary friend, a "professional warrior" named Jon Stone. These big boys do so much heavy lifting that we almost lose sight of two other heroes, first met in Crais's previous book, the K-9 officer Scott James and his partner, Maggie, a German shepherd with more personality than all of them put together. THE KELLERMANS ARE on the march. In THE THEORY OF DEATH (Morrow/HarperCollins, $26.99), Faye Kellerman writes with her usual sensitivity about troubled teenagers and young adults like Eli Wolf, a math genius whose naked body is found in the woods not far from his college in Greenbury, N.Y. Detective Peter Decker, who relocated to this upstate burg after a more eventful career as a Los Angeles cop, is too conscientious to write off Eli's lonely death as a suicide, but when he opens an investigation it lands him in the snake pit of academic politics. Writing to her strengths, Kellerman shows her customary compassion for isolated souls like Eli and social outliers like his Mennonite farm family. Kellerman's husband, Jonathan, and their son, Jesse, team up in THE GOLEM OF PARIS (Putnam, $27.95) on something truly off the wall - a classically constructed detective story featuring the tormented hero of a previous book ("The Golem of Hollywood") that morphs into a supernatural thriller combining elements of Jewish legend, religious mysticism and pagan mythology. While the novel's paranormal elements don't mesh easily with the procedural work, it's hard to resist a protagonist who does battle with demonic giants and is in thrall to a woman who's part angel and part bug.

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [November 15, 2015]
Review by Booklist Review

Barrymore, whose wild-child antics drew as much attention as her roles in such movies as E.T. (1982) and Boys on the Side (1995), has matured into a savvy and grounded woman, and her new memoir couldn't be more different than Little Girl Lost (1991), the confessional about her battles with drug and alcohol addictions. Now a happily married mother, Barrymore shares vignettes from her current life, from infrequent visits with her troubled father to skydiving with pal Cameron Diaz to letters to her two daughters. Even when she looks back on some of her wilder days, such as when she drove her Bronco into the gate of a parking garage or swam for shore to escape a seniors cruise, she has an almost incredulous tone, as though she can no longer quite fathom her own youthful indiscretions. Though she shares tales from her long and prosperous career, such as teaming up with Adam Sandler, those looking for salacious gossip won't find it here. Instead, Barrymore's book is a cheerful and happy examination of some of the ups and downs in her life.--Huntley, Kristine Copyright 2015 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

For those seeking gory details of film star Barrymore's misspent youth, there's not much to be found in this low-key memoir. Instead, she brings honesty, sweetness, and humor to the tale of how she fought to earn the hard-won wisdom that steered her from being a 12-year-old former child star to becoming a beloved actor. When Barrymore wisely gets emancipated at 14-her father was homeless and her mother didn't even know enough to pack a lunch for her on school days-she's a high school dropout who lacks basic survival skills. Mastering doing her own laundry truly gives the defeated Barrymore a new lease on life: she gains confidence and purpose while also educating herself, devouring book after book at the laundromat. Of course her trademark goofy oddball humor is present as she recalls teenage loves, but there's also growth and a blossoming realization that she can turn her love of work and her desires to do something meaningful into a career. After being welcomed back as an actor and then a producer, Barrymore has shifted to a life that's less Hollywood-driven, focusing on her cosmetics company, Flower Beauty, and her home life. In the end, Barrymore has written a warm and inviting narrative. Agent: Simon Green, CAA. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review

In her new collection of essays, actress Barrymore cautiously avoids the idea that these vignettes collectively compose a memoir. She hopes that readers will "dip into when you need to or when you like to," and the stories work well in that way. Brief segments of the 40-year-old performer's life provide a small window into her enviably giddy attitude. Turning her emancipation at the age of 14 into a tale of learning to live as a strong, independent woman and bouncing through her film career and motherhood, each story becomes a little more relatable. At one point she describes rowdily crashing her car through a fence because she felt young and invincible; however ill-conceived the idea, this may cause readers to recall their own youthful idiotic mistakes. VERDICT This is not a collection for those looking to remain negative and dour. At times, Barrymore's recollections seem unbelievable-is it really possible that she has memories of being 11 months old? Still, they are heartwarming. Fans of the actress, her production company, makeup line, or girl-next-door demeanor, or anyone looking for a companion in book form, will enjoy. [See Prepub Alert, 4/27/15.]-Kaitlin Connors, Virginia Beach P.L. © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review

An endearing, earnest, lightly cultivated garden of stories from the actress. The voice of the woman who captured hearts as a child in E.T. is instantly recognizable in this sweet work. In her preface, Barrymore (Find It in Everything: Photographs by Drew Barrymore, 2014, etc.) shares hesitation at calling her book a memoir, a term that "seemed heavy to me, and I want this to be light." What follows lives up to her intention. It's a time-hopping assemblage of, among other things, sky diving with friend Cameron Diaz, exploring religion in India, and creating Flower Films, a girl-powered production company. We learn of her deep need for approval and a cycle of worry and relief pervading her professional life, but Barrymore has found happiness (the exclamation points prove it!), and there's no place for dirt in this garden. Barrymore perfunctorily addresses her unstable parents, wild child years, and famous relatives, an approach that creates unresolved questions. The few stories from her younger years that she does share are humble ("I really am so sorry and remorseful"), and readers get the sense that she is writing in full knowledge that her two daughters will be reading this someday. Accordingly, it's writing to and about her daughters and motherhood where Barrymore shines. She allows herself to be vulnerable and overcome with wonder, just like the girl America fell in love with decades ago. Although she is a flower child, free and thriving, in several instances, the book would have benefited from a heavier editorial hande.g., an office that's described as "warm and truly lived in" is again called "warm and utterly organized" two sentences later. It's easy to like Barrymore, and even if her life isn't quite an open book, we get an often funny, occasionally tear-jerking picture of a woman who has replaced past darkness with love and light and who just wants everyone to be happy. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.