Review: The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher

This last book from beloved Hollywood icon Carrie Fisher is the crown jewel of ideal Star Wars gifts. The Princess Diarist is an intimate, hilarious, and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time.
When Carrie Fisher discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved--plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Before her passing, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon was indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.
With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time--and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into one of Hollywood's most beloved stars.

This autobiography revolves around her unreleased journal entries during her time filming the first Star Wars film, in which she was a fresh faced nineteen year old girl. She was cast as the ever memorable Princess Leia. The memoir is a combination of witticisms, cringe worthy feelings and gut wrenching sadness.

Carrie was no stranger to relative fame. Her mother was the actress Debbie Reynolds and her father was singer, Eddie Fisher. She realised how fickle the show business industry could be when her father left her mother for Elizabeth Taylor, causing a scandal and upset in her world. She was absolutely positive that she didn’t want to get stuck in the same rut. She more or less walked into the audition for Star Wars blind to what would become of her privacy, she had no idea how to handle her newly skyrocketed fame.

I had never been Princess Leia before and now I would be her forever. I would never not be Princess Leia. I had no idea how profoundly true that was and how long forever was.

This partial memoir examines her life during the Star wars years from her profound introduction to stardom at the tender age of nineteen, through her experience being part of Carison (her affair with Harrison Ford) and the significant effect it had on her.

The big bombshell that comes out of this memoir is the affair with Harrison Ford. This information hadn’t been public knowledge mainly due to, I think her shame at doing something her own father had done. In my eyes, Harrison’s behaviour was extremely dubious and although she goes very easy on him, the picture she paints is one of a man that says very little, does very little and realises very little. He seduces her in the back of a taxi whilst she is extremely drunk. A man of his age should of realised how wrong this was (not to mention the fact he was a married man with two children). The fact that he refused to acknowledge or talk about the situation between is surely not normal? This was for sure a bone of contention for Carrie and a trigger for several bouts of poor mental health.

It’s not nice being inside my head. It’s a nice place to visit but I don’t want to live in here. It’s too crowded; too many traps and pitfalls.

Carrie’s diary entries are self depreciating and rather cringe worthy, unfortunately. They ramble on and come across as quite repetitive. I think from these entries that she has struggled with her mental health and this come through in her writing. The truly sad note to these memoirs is how she feels towards her character, Princess Leia. She feels that it’s a job that she can never be fired from nor leave. It’s what she will forever be remembered for. It was a love hate relationship, she never expected this little film to be anything big. She will forever be immortalised in the super franchise that is Star Wars.