If you haven't read Julie Andrews' first memoir, Home, have no fear. Andrews provides a brief summary in the prologue to this book.
I read her first memoir and this second memoir back to back so that I wouldn't forget anything. If you're a fan of Julie Andrews and want to know more about her life and get some fun facts about the movies she's been in, then you'll enjoy reading Home Work. It starts at Mary Poppins and ends right before she's due to go back to Broadway for Victor/Victoria.
The big takeaway from this book, for me, is that I always associate Julie Andrews with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. But she did a lot of other movies and not all of them required singing. It almost seemed like she was an accidental actress. Many times throughout the book she laments the fact that she never studied with an acting coach and often felt unsure of how to play a character. Could have fooled me!
There is a lot of moving around in this second memoir with lots of name dropping, so it's hard to keep track of where Andrews is and who she is with. Her family liked to travel, and she and her movie director husband were always off on location to shoot a film. At times, it's easy to be jealous of Andrews spending the holidays in Switzerland in her own chalet.
But then you remember the financial implications and how she had to balance work and family. There were times that Andrews felt she wasn't making it work. (I have to ask why one would add to the chaos by adopting two more children, but that's just me.) I worried for her kids and what all the moving around must have been like for them. I certainly don't envy that.
Not sure if there will be a third memoir. This one just came out last year. I'd love to hear more about Andrews' later years, especially about the surgery that cost her her singing voice, but maybe she doesn't want to go into that or doesn't feel there's much to say about the third chapter of her life. She seemed to sum things up nicely in the epilogue.
One thing is for sure, I'm having a Julie Andrews movie marathon while stuck at home on quarantine!
Home Work is published by Hachette and is on bookstore shelves. I purchased a copy of the book.
I read her first memoir and this second memoir back to back so that I wouldn't forget anything. If you're a fan of Julie Andrews and want to know more about her life and get some fun facts about the movies she's been in, then you'll enjoy reading Home Work. It starts at Mary Poppins and ends right before she's due to go back to Broadway for Victor/Victoria.The big takeaway from this book, for me, is that I always associate Julie Andrews with Mary Poppins and The Sound of Music. But she did a lot of other movies and not all of them required singing. It almost seemed like she was an accidental actress. Many times throughout the book she laments the fact that she never studied with an acting coach and often felt unsure of how to play a character. Could have fooled me!
There is a lot of moving around in this second memoir with lots of name dropping, so it's hard to keep track of where Andrews is and who she is with. Her family liked to travel, and she and her movie director husband were always off on location to shoot a film. At times, it's easy to be jealous of Andrews spending the holidays in Switzerland in her own chalet.
But then you remember the financial implications and how she had to balance work and family. There were times that Andrews felt she wasn't making it work. (I have to ask why one would add to the chaos by adopting two more children, but that's just me.) I worried for her kids and what all the moving around must have been like for them. I certainly don't envy that.
Not sure if there will be a third memoir. This one just came out last year. I'd love to hear more about Andrews' later years, especially about the surgery that cost her her singing voice, but maybe she doesn't want to go into that or doesn't feel there's much to say about the third chapter of her life. She seemed to sum things up nicely in the epilogue.
One thing is for sure, I'm having a Julie Andrews movie marathon while stuck at home on quarantine!
Home Work is published by Hachette and is on bookstore shelves. I purchased a copy of the book.
Comments
Post a Comment