Rating: Summary: journey of healing Review: If you are looking for a tell all about her previous relationships, DON'T read Anne Heche's book. If you are interested in learning about her journey of healing from childhood abuse, then you will probably like reading this book (I won't say enjoy as parts are horrific). Being a survivor of childhood abuse, this book is "real." I am not talking about the events, but how to deal with all that dysfunction. I can totally identify with the patterns within/without the family. If I were to write a memoir, my mother and siblings would be gung-ho to talk about my father's behavior, but would be insulted to think they played a part and may have a responsibility for what occurred, especially my saintly mother (who is also named Nancy). The Heche family reaction is so typical. I suffered from a fragmented personality, clincial depression and post traumatic stress disorder, so I can honestly say that the journey is not ended for her just because she has "integrated," but it is a great freedom to just be one mind/one memory. Then the real work begins of learning to "live," not survive, but LIVE! Your friends become your "family" and someday with lots of work and luck, your biological family can become friends.
Rating: Summary: This girl is REALLY NUTTS.... Review: She believes shes going to be the mother of the second coming of christ. This book must be a joke, it had me laughing. She sounds like shes joined a cult and she really believes shes a household name . If this book is true she has more issues that we previously thought. Somebody help her...
Rating: Summary: life is crazy Review: many of us have lived a life similar to anne heches, the only difference we aren't celebrities and we aren't writting books about it. thank you for writting this book ... it makes me understand my own families dynamic much better and accept the fact of being crazy.
Rating: Summary: How bout, "Call Me An Attention Seeking Nutjob!" Review: Ugh! I bought this after her wacko interview with Barbara Walters and was amazed to see what a goofy gal she is. She talks about childhood tragedy, but then seems unsure it really happened. I'd love to see a book by Ellen Degeneres and get the real story. Her flighty can't seem to get the facts straight style makes it tough to believe what really happened to her. And why is there nothing about her affair with Shirley Hemphill and Todd Bridges in this book? That was the part I was looking forward to the most!
Rating: Summary: WHY BUY THE BOOK? Review: Anne the nutball spilled her guts on 20/20, what more is there to say? I have never seen a more ridiculous woman in my life. Think Sally Field's "You really like me!" speech stretched out for 40 minutes. This woman is so hungry for publicity (has she been in ANYTHING since the breakup?) she spilled her guts Sally Jesse Raphael-style on TV, complete with eyelash batting, hair flipping and tearing up. Please Anne. Go away now.
Rating: Summary: An astonishing tale of abuse and ultimate survival. Review: Anne Heche is the finest actress of her generation; a multi-talented chameleon whose performances have ranged from outrageous comedy (Six Days Seven Nights) to heartbreaking tragedy (Return To Paradise). But like so many other great actresses before her, that versatility did not come without a great deal of personal pain and abuse. After 31 years of near 'insanity,' Heche has finally cleared her soul of the childhood traumas that tortured her. From the closeted gay father who raped and beat her repeatedly, to the mother who let it happen and has yet to apologize or face the reality of her psychic damage, Heche's nightmares manifested themselves in a break with reality -- the creation of a second, Jesus-like personality she called Celestia. Fundamentalists Christians are warned to keep away, but the open-minded reader will welcome the revelations offered. A child of abuse who has survived to tell her tale, Heche offers a lucid, well-written autobiography that I read in a single evening. For the empathetic, this is a very tough read -- I fought back tears more than once -- but rest assured the story has a happy ending. I only hope that her new husband and expectant child will continue to enrich her life and give her the freedom and happiness she deserves. Go Annie!
Rating: Summary: this chick is derfinately CRAZY! Review: Wow, she is really out there. Celestia? You gotta be kidding me.
Rating: Summary: GLBT Boycott Anne's Book Review: Anne Heche -who at once seemed to be an ally to the GLBT community- is now a great enemy. Keep in mind the damage she is doing to the gay community is far-reaching. She is telling us that her "homosexual father" molested her as a child. Whether or not her father is homosexual is not important, but yet she didn't forget to "mention" it. Thanks to Ms. Heche this statement about a homosexual child molester was broadcast across the country on Entertainment Tonight on the date of 9/5/01. This statement reinforces beliefs that we have worked so hard to abolish-the belief that all gay people are child molesters. In addition, Anne Heche claims that she was "crazy" or "insane" when she was with Ellen. Her insanity explains her homosexuality? I don't know if you can see what this will possibly do. Imagine a girl coming out to her mom. "Mom, I'm a lesbian." Mother's rationale: "Oh, it's just like Anne Heche. It's just a phase.. she's just going through a phase." Again, Anne Heche is reinforcing a myth that we have worked so hard to abolish! I work with glbt youth and the last thing we need is another reason for a parent to dismiss their child's sexuality as something unreal or unimportant. It's very important that the GLBT community and it's allies boycott this book! If we purchase this book -no matter how interesting it seems- we are supporting a woman who is possibly destroying the image of gay people everywhere. Please do not support Anne Heche in her degradation of our people.
Rating: Summary: Crazier than me!! Review: Read this book over the weekend and was surprised to find someone out there in the world crazier than me! Like most people who will buy this book I was mainly interested in the Ellen saga which Anne does get into in pretty decent detail. But- I did feel pulled into Anne's painful childhood and the writing I felt was very good. At the book's end though I just felt sad- sad for this woman and sad that she really feels like her suffering has come to an end. As a child of such abuse- her pain will linger forever and will resurface over and over in different ways throughout her life. Especially now with Anne's pregnancy and impending motherhood. It will never end- no matter how many books she writes.Anne is very brave for having written such a book and for all the press (mainly negative) she will receive- not to mention the Jay/David jokes that will ensue. One other part of the book that was a trip for me: Anne's relationship with Fleetwood Mac genius Lindsey Buckingham: I can't help but be fascinated with the fact that Lindsey couldn't bring her to orgasm! HA!
Rating: Summary: Yikes! Review: Although not the best writing style, the story does flow and this book turned out to be a page-turner. Before reading this book, I had no fondness for Anne Heche. I thought she was a perfectly adequate actress, but I believed her jumping from relationship to relationship (with whoever was the most famous or whoever had the most money) was a bit opportunistic, and maybe I still think that. However, her book explains her actions.
Anne believes that her father molested her - although she does not present any particular concrete memory to back this up. She told her mother that she had herpes on her face, and her mother admitted that when Anne was a baby, she had what was probably herpes on her vaginal area. Apparently her mother didn't catch them from husband, or if she did, she wasn't saying. What upset Anne so much was that her mother would never say she was sorry, or acknowledge that she was in any way responsible for not protecting Anne. What's weird (to me) is that obviously her father was a homosexual who had gay relationships with other adult males (he died of AIDS), but according to Anne's story, he was also a heterosexual pedophile - what's up with that?
Her father was a choir master who moved from church to church and her mother did not work (until much later). Her mother somehow managed to feed the family on the $5.00 a week her husband brought home. It's obvious that many of Anne's memories are not clear, but that's the way it is for many abuse survivors. Not only was Anne sexually abused, her father physically abused all the kids (her brother got blamed for stealing money - her father was the culprit), and the children were not allowed to ask questions and were punished for this. Her mother stood by him because that's what a good wife does, and above all, she was worried about getting into heaven. Although her mother told Anne that one of her little Jewish friends was a monster and going straight to hell, she later dated two married Jewish men herself.
Luckily Anne was discovered by a Proctor and Gamble talent scout while in high school, auditioned for a soap, and got the heck out of that mess. Her life afterwards actually went pretty smoothly - she seemed to get any acting job she wanted, got along well with others, and even had Steve Martin wanting to marry her. Anne was in therapy at a young age, but unfortunately, went a little haywire somewhere in her twenties. Due to her religious upbringing (all her mother cared about was Jesus' opinion, not her kids), and trying to deal with her dysfunctional family, Anne developed an alter ego, Celestia, who was the daughter of God, come to save mankind. Amazing things happened, albeit slightly otherwordly, and Anne filled two books with the writings (in another language) of Celestia. She also did drawings and poems. I wish that she had printed some excerpts of these. I think that along with those, some family pictures would have helped this book out tremendously.
What I'm not clear on, is the day she was going to get on the ship to go to heaven, she took Ecstasy, which she said that "they" instructed her to do. Was her fantasy afterward due to the drug, or would it have happened anyway? Because she certainly seemed to wise up pretty quickly once she was in the hospital.
Overall, I think Anne Heche has done a lot of work through the years on her emotional well-being, and seems to have it together at this point. She definitely has a couple of things straight: We are all children of God, and to love someone else, you must first love yourself. Thanks, Anne, for sharing your story.
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