Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
15
Ratings4
Average rating3.3
NEW YORK TIMES BEST SELLER • Selma Blair has played many roles: Ingenue in Cruel Intentions. Preppy ice queen in Legally Blonde. Muse to Karl Lagerfeld. Advocate for the multiple sclerosis community. But before all of that, Selma was known best as … a mean baby. In a memoir that is as wildly funny as it is emotionally shattering, Blair tells the captivating story of growing up and finding her truth. "Blair is a rebel, an artist, and it turns out: a writer." —Glennon Doyle, Author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller Untamed and Founder of Together Rising The first story Selma Blair Beitner ever heard about herself is that she was a mean, mean baby. With her mouth pulled in a perpetual snarl and a head so furry it had to be rubbed to make way for her forehead, Selma spent years living up to her terrible reputation: biting her sisters, lying spontaneously, getting drunk from Passover wine at the age of seven, and behaving dramatically so that she would be the center of attention. Although Selma went on to become a celebrated Hollywood actress and model, she could never quite shake the periods of darkness that overtook her, the certainty that there was a great mystery at the heart of her life. She often felt like her arms might be on fire, a sensation not unlike electric shocks, and she secretly drank to escape. Over the course of this beautiful and, at times, devasting memoir, Selma lays bare her addiction to alcohol, her devotion to her brilliant and complicated mother, and the moments she flirted with death. There is brutal violence, passionate love, true friendship, the gift of motherhood, and, finally, the surprising salvation of a multiple sclerosis diagnosis. In a voice that is powerfully original, fiercely intelligent, and full of hard-won wisdom, Selma Blair’s Mean Baby is a deeply human memoir and a true literary achievement.
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She manages to bring out complicated information about people and still show us reasons to love them. We also see how much her illness affected her life especially when she didn't know what it was or that it wasn't normal.
This boo doesn't follow a specific timeline, but listening to the audiobook feels like Selma just telling us various life experiences. The writing is extremely well done and makes everything feel very special.
So many comical moments within her life story but ultimately it's a tale of survival. She's truly an inspirational person.
Reading Mean Baby so soon after Jennette McCurdy's [b:I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173 I'm Glad My Mom Died Jennette McCurdy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649286799l/59364173.SY75.jpg 93537110] might have been a mistake. Both women had difficult mothers and turned to alcohol to avoid dealing with their feelings. Selma Blair had the added burden of living with undiagnosed MS for decades. But while McCurdy's book reveals a young adult who fully recognizes the damage done by her mother's manipulative narcissism, Blair views the same behavior through rose-colored glasses, insisting that her mother's insults and neglect were just her unique ways to demonstrate love. After discussing her childhood as a “mean baby,” the bulk of Blair's stories of her adulthood contains numerous harrowing episodes of alcohol binging, rape/dub-con sex, and appearances by countless celebrities. Okay, we get it - you're friends with Claire Danes and Sarah Michelle Gellar, you dated Jason Schwartzman, and you had a bond with Carrie Fisher. Do you also have to continue to name drop scores of additional famous people in your acknowledgements? The last third of the book is the most impactful. Blair becomes a mother and then finally realizes that the physical pain and other symptoms she has experienced for years are due to Multiple Sclerosis. She is brutally honest about the terror of being a new mom and realizing she can't use alcohol as an escape when she is responsible for a helpless infant. And she explains how MS flare-ups leave her in chronic pain, unable to walk, speak or even feel her own body. I admire the fact that she has been very public about her diagnosis and even released a documentary (Introducing Selma Blair) to increase public knowledge and reduce stigma about MS and chronic diseases in general. Blair says she carries her own story inside her after years of listening to the stories everyone else told about her. I wish she had looked a little deeper before giving hers a voice.
This reminded me of Hayley Mills's memoir Forever Young. She writes about how brilliant and wonderful her parents were, but really, they were awful. Selma Blair writes the same about her mother. She laughs at the scathing remarks her mother made to her when she was a child and says but she was just so honest and she loved me so much. Did she? I'm not sure about that.
