Rating: - Not just a story but a rare insight
If you liked Julie Walters in any of her work, Mrs O on stage or screen, Billy Elliot, Mrs Weasley in the well known Harry Potter films, Rita (the first and best), Petula Gordino or any number of fantastic characters then this is the book for you.
This is the story behind the characters. I knew very little about said author, the bare minimum of being with Grant (though how they got together left me laughing quite loudly), her daughter Maisie and how she met up with Victoria Wood. How I knew so little and oh how I cried with laughter (even in public) at this tale, which no doubt comes from the bottom of Walters's heart.
Walters's starts this story from her birth; in fact we are taken to just before her birth, with the recount of it by her mother (told by Julie who as she says felt she was there). Her mother obviously told this tale on more than one occasion that you feel you know exactly what was going to come. I have a mother like that.
Through her school life, not quite so happy but educating in more ways than one. Her education beginning with Nuns moving to the local grammar school with a borderline pass in the 11 plus, where her education moved up a gear as did puberty.
Her short adventure into nursing has stayed with her and the stories are whilst fraught with the real life and death situations have a touch of humour in them, it is Walters's wit and style that brings it so much to life.
Rating: - I love you Julie but.........
The book is not well written, and probably written too early in her occupation as a magnifiencent national treasure.
The book has the feel of being a collection of tales that came to light around a dinner table and were roughly put together in a book and for tidiness's sake applied to one person's alleged experience.
Several incidents I distinctly remember finding in other collections that are generally considered to be part of show business folk lore.
For me a very difficult read, it was very crude and not in a chuckly way, more an "Of Dear" way.
I have no doubt that many of the amusing and/or traumatic incidents did happen to our Julie but the less convincing material diminished the 'fun' of the telling - for example the colourful 'vomit' interludes.
Be Julie next time please, a ghost writer would enable you to have your colourful, amusing story told in a way that kept your diginity intact and be an enthralling read.
You are better than this.... but I would still take a bullet for you.
Rating: - thats another story
I would love to give you a review on this book which i was told would be dispatched on 10th Dec. As yet it has not arrived
Please advise as \and when i can expect delivery.
Thankyou
S. Brazell
Rating: - Not brave enough?
I am and have been a fan of Julie Walters for many many years. I STILL watch "As Seen On TV" whenever I need cheering up and love Petula Gordino with a passion, so was thrilled when this book hit my doormat.
However for me it is a book of two distinct halves. The first half covers her childhood and "pre-fame" years and is detailed, funny and quite frank. You get a real sense of Julie's "voice" in the writing and I was reading avidly, getting very excited about the prospect of this detail and frankness being applied to her famous roles.
That's where the problem with the book lies.
After the detail and insight of her stories regarding her youth, Julie glosses over her famous career in an oddly cavalier fashion. I read just over a page or so on her various work with Victoria Wood and thought "That must be a teaser, she'll come back to it", but NO. That was IT! This technique was repeated constantly. Calendar Girls was not discussed AT ALL, Dinnerladies only briefly mentioned, Mrs Weasley covered in about four sentences...I could go on.
This is especially disappointing after the depth and honesty of the first half. She is very candid about her parents and her relationship with them, but once the spectre of "fame" enters the book she becomes very guarded and highly selective with information.
Her marriage and relocation to Sussex is almost mentioned "in passing" and I don't think she even refers to her daughter's serious illness, surely a defining ... Read More
Rating: - I wish I'd read another story!
As a huge Julie Walters fan, and having read the reviews, I was really looking forward to a good read. Unfortunately I was disappointed. I was hoping for lots of tales of her personal life now, but this wasn't touched on. It was all about her early years as a child growing up, and how she got her break into acting. There was nothing about the shows I loved, Dinnerladies and Acorn Antiques, just lots of boring chapters about her days on stage. I found myself skip-reading the last third of the book because I was finding it tedious and boring. I've read lots of other autobiographies so am no strangers to them, but this was certainly lacking in entertainment compared to others out there.
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