NOTE FOUND IN A BOTTLE

Rating:
Summary: Just plain bad
Review: At one point in her recent memoir 'Note Found In A Bottle', Susan Cheever tells us that looking back on her life she almost feels as though it had happened to someone else. I find that very easy to believe, because this comes off as an amatuerish biography by a not-so-close aquaintance. Reading this book, I felt as though Cheever were fast-forwarding through a poorly made movie of her life. She has clearly been through a lot and has experienced enough to write something formidable, but instead she rushes through her life stopping only to drop the occasional name. What is truly amazing to me is the lack of introspection on Cheever's part. Once in a while she attempts to analyze her past, but the attempts are shallow. Simply put, she was unable to get close enough to her own life to allow me to empathize.

It is very difficult to review a memoir, because in the end you are not only reviewing an individual's work, you are reviewing the individual. That being said, I don't think I would have enjoyed having Susan Cheever as a friend. While she seems to have made some vague connection between her past problems and her drinking, she often writes as though she were patting herself on the back for her cool friends and hip lifestyle. Now she pats herself on the back for outgrowing her desire for a drink. If only she had spent more time thinking and less time revelling in the hype she has created for herself, this could have been a book worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: honest and finely crafted
Review: I honor Ms. Cheever for exposing her life in such a way that illuminates the denial and distortion that accompanies this disease. I thought it was extremely well written and unsparing prose. I recommend this book to anyone with a soul which has been cracked and mended. She has real talent; I hope she remembers that when she reads some of the detritus herein.

Rating:
Summary: Talent wasted through incessant name-dropping
Review: I suppose that the author will be called "brave" by some reviewers for "speaking out" about her alcoholism, but let's face it, it's well-trod ground by now. What's most interesting, to me, about this book is how long it took Susan Cheever to realize that incessant drinking, promiscuity, submitting to the gropings of a lecherous therapist, and much more, were not in her best interests, to say the least. As someone who grew up in an alcoholic, violent family, who didn't enjoy the privileges that the Cheever name and connections brought, I think that despite her prolific writing career, the author hasn't done nearly enough to get her nose out of her navel. (At one point, I felt as though I read one more self-reference to how Susan Cheever felt "pretty," I'd scream.) Susan Cheever needs to stay out of Elaine's for awhile, stop telling us about her affairs with famous men (why did she fail to name her first husband? Huh?), and find out what the simple people *do*, to paraphrase the song from "Camelot." Having written memoirs of both her parents as well as herself, she's run out of famous relatives. It's time for her to move on.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading title
Review: In reviewing a book, one must have a basis from which to start. In considering Cheever's book, I cannot fathom where to start a conclusive review because the entire title of the novel is completely misleading. My intent in reading this autobiography was to learn more about an alcoholic firsthand, in her own words. Unfortunately, there was very little substantial material written about alcoholism, its effects, repercussions, etc. In fact, had that title been different I would have probably enjoyed this bland book about a woman's life tinged with alcohol, among many other things which were given just as much attention in the book. Therefor I find it useless to judge this book because it is based on so many vacant concepts.

Rating:
Summary: Misleading title
Review: In reviewing a book, one must have a basis from which to start. In considering Cheever's book, I cannot fathom where to start a conclusive review because the entire title of the novel is completely misleading. My intent in reading this autobiography was to learn more about an alcoholic firsthand, in her own words. Unfortunately, there was very little substantial material written about alcoholism, its effects, repercussions, etc. In fact, had that title been different I would have probably enjoyed this bland book about a woman's life tinged with alcohol, among many other things which were given just as much attention in the book. Therefor I find it useless to judge this book because it is based on so many vacant concepts.

Rating:
Summary: no truth here
Review: Susan Cheever presents a picture of an alocholic who is sophisticated, talented and brilliant, but a drunk nonetheless. In telling her no-holds- barred story, she addresses millions who believe that their accomplishments, their clothing and their connections completely separate them from the drooling, the homeless and the crazies we all know to be alcoholics. Her story presents without varnish the moral degeneration and denial of personal responsibility brought about by her drinking. She does not polish sobriety either...thank God she did not become the perfect human like so many of the reformed. Thanks to Susan for the trip through the reality that does not contain all of the answers. Too bad so many readers are willing to fault her for not trying to give what she doesn't have.

Rating:
Summary: Post - it in a Bottle
Review: Though "Note" is neither deep or introspective, it was easy to read with occasional excellent lines. My favorite (which made the whole book worth it for me) was "It's not that I had a miserable childhood -- I didn't -- it's that I was a miserable child."

The memoir is interesting in its very ordinariness: except for her father's fame which gave her access to more wealthy and famous people, her life, her affairs, her alcoholism and her recovery were unremarkable.

Though I enjoyed this book, it was more like an after-school special on the dangers of alcohol (you will forget things, have big fights, and sleep with many men) than an illustration of alcoholism or even the life of Susan Cheever. She admits some things, such as God, and apparently her feelings about her father, are "too private" to explain. Perhaps so, but then why write a memoir?

Rating:
Summary: Post - it in a Bottle
Review: Though "Note" is neither deep or introspective, it was easy to read with occasional excellent lines. My favorite (which made the whole book worth it for me) was "It's not that I had a miserable childhood -- I didn't -- it's that I was a miserable child."

The memoir is interesting in its very ordinariness: except for her father's fame which gave her access to more wealthy and famous people, her life, her affairs, her alcoholism and her recovery were unremarkable.

Though I enjoyed this book, it was more like an after-school special on the dangers of alcohol (you will forget things, have big fights, and sleep with many men) than an illustration of alcoholism or even the life of Susan Cheever. She admits some things, such as God, and apparently her feelings about her father, are "too private" to explain. Perhaps so, but then why write a memoir?

Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Unlike most of the other reviews, I did like this book. However, it is true that it was superficial - Cheever has an equally "addictive" problem with men, in my book, but doesn't really examine it. Also, I learned a lot reading about her father's recovery from alcoholism, but she should have examined this more in depth. I did like the early part of the book where I was educated about the early settlers of our country, and how booze was so VERY important to them. A much better-written examination of a female alcoholic is the book: Drinking: A Love Story. That book was excellent, from beginning to end. However, there were a few stand-outs in this book: whenever I drink champagne, I always remember what Cheever said, that she thought it wasn't really booze, so that therefore she wasn't really an alcoholic, "because it was bubbly". As a non-alcoholic, these comments showed me the "illogical logic" of an alcoholic.