... full of pithy and sharp recollections of her rebelliousness and determination.

... latest in a long list of essay collections by celebrities that have been published over the past decade or so. It’s also one of the best. From the very first essay, Surprise, which begins with an enraged nine-year-old Driver being driven back to boarding school against her will after a weekend at home, Driver establishes her distinct literary voice: warm but unsentimental, emotionally insightful, with a strong sense of the absurd.

Driver candidly shares her joys and sorrows and successes and failures with wit, grace, and humor. She has an eye for the telling detail and easily parses the significance of each experience she writes about. The final essay in the collection is particularly affecting. In it, she writes movingly about her mother’s final illness and death in a way that will connect with anyone who has faced that experience. Fans of arts memoirs will enjoy this thoughtful and elegant book..

Driver parlays her ebullient charm from the screen to the page in this sparkling debut, a series of amusing essays on Hollywood, motherhood, and the vicissitudes of life.

Deftly crafted essays.