Rating: 
Summary: Engaging, enlightening, and hopeful
Review: This book tells the real story behind Anne Heche's life and is incredibly compelling. Anne Heche is the movie star best known for dating Ellen DeGeneris for a while and then going "crazy" (i.e., having a psychotic break). At the height of her craziness, she was found one day wandering near a dirt road in Fresno waiting for a space ship to take her to heaven. But behind the madness is a story to explain it all. Heche survived god awful abuse as a child. All the crazy things in her life that happened subsequently make perfect sense in light of her past. For example, her Jesus complex stemmed from the fact that her mother devoted herself entirely to Jesus rather than to her family. (In one telling instance, Anne asked her mother what her mother's purpose in life was, and the mother responded "to serve Jesus and get to heaven," not to love her family or even to love herself. By "becoming" Jesus, Anne tried to finally earn her mother's love and approval.) The book demonstrates well that madness has a psychic basis and that recovery is possible. Plus, it's very readable and engaging. I really enjoyed it.
Rating: 
Summary: an intriguing memoir
Review: Anne Heche writes an intimate, sad, story of a girl who went through hell. I found it to be poignant, surprising, and sweet. There are a couple of graphic descriptions of events in her life that most people would find a little disturbing.it takes guts to pour out that much of yourself, candidly and honestly, and I reccommend this book just simply to hear about the world someone else has had to endure.
Rating: 
Summary: Crazy/Beautiful
Review: Anyone who has seen Anne Heche prance through her current Broadway hit will have difficulty believing she ever was crazy, but if her memoir is to be believed, she did suffer through some difficult patches in her life. In one episode she stares like Isabel Archer into the fireplace and sees the pictures in the flames, the pictures of her past, a past that involved a sordid childhood secret, and also dating Steve Martin which couldn't have been easy. I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy.
People say that Ellen De Generes based the characterization of her forgetful fish in FINDING NEMO on Anne Heche when the mental illness made her forget things (such as if she was heterosexual or not), but in this book Anne Heche sets the record "straight" as it were. She is never less than candid, but I wonder if someday she'll look back on this book and ask herself, did I just write this to make money? And she might look at some of her films with the same idea, such as that awful adventure comedy with Harrison Ford.
Rating: 
Summary: Killed my affection for Anne Heche
Review: I really liked Anne Heche once; I found her attractive talented and sexy. Then I picked up this book on audiotape, written by the author. The best I can say for it is that it isn't boring - it made the miles go by quickly on the long drive I was taking at the time. The book goes much like the movie, "The Lonely Lady," a film I list as the worst film I ever paid admission to. Both of them are one long, grating claim of victimization of a woman by nearly everyone she has known. I don't doubt that Anne's father was less than ideal. It's pretty much on record that he led a double suburban husband / gay man about town life. But her claims of him being sexually abusing her - a female child - since infancy are unbelievable, and are probably a product of her extreme bitterness toward the man, not to mention her dubious choice of a therapist. Like others, one of my first viewings of Anne was in the movie "Wild Side," in which she had a love scene with Joan Chen. The scene is justly famous, not just for the lesbian angle to it but the fact it was genuinely well-scripted and sweet. Whether she enjoyed doing the scene or not, I wanted to know more about making it. But the only mention of "Wild Side" in the book is a snarling reference about having to play a call girl in an unnamed film. It's typical of the way the book snaps at its fan audience. No photographs are included. While she does write at some length about Ellen Degeneres (the only person who is described in flattering terms) her affairs with Steve Martin and everyone else get short shrift. Say, don't you want to know more about my haullucinatory theology? It's notable that she seems to be getting few significant job offers the past couple years. This may be because of her recent marriage and maternity. But I tend to suspect another reason is like Francis Farmer, her talent is simply not worth the considerable trouble of working with her.
Rating:
Summary: BRAVO!
Review: Thank you, Anne, for sharing with us the most intimate details of your life. The things Anne has been through are amazing and the work she has done on herself is incredible. That someone can grow up in such grotesque surroundings in which any sliver of individuality was completely suppressed and subsequently develop enough strength to face the demons that were left inside them self is amazing! I can't help but be inspired by her strength and by the message she puts forth in the book, that you cannot love or receive love from another person until you love yourself and allow yourself to be who you are. Cliché, yes, but Anne does a beautiful job of showing us how she is working to achieve just that. In this book Anne shares with us the most hideous parts of the abuse she endured as a child and the ugliness she later faced in therapy and in her life. I had to keep reminding myself that this was non-fiction; I just couldn't believe this really happened. Although some parts were tough to get through, upon finishing the book I feel hopeful. As a social worker, I am fully aware of the many forms of abuse that exist within our society. The only people that can stop the cycle of abuse are those stuck in the cycle, the victims of abuse. These people must posses the energy and the courage to face themselves and their beliefs about themselves that have been put in their head by their abuser so as to not perpetuate the abuse. Anne has proven that it is possible. This is a brave piece of work Anne has put together and I am inspired by her courage and strength!
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