Review: Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between
by Lauren Graham
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Publication date: Nov. 29, 2016
Genre: Nonfiction memoir
Rating:

In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood—along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again.

In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”).

In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”).

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.

 

 

 

I am a huge fan of Gilmore Girls. I remember watching it every week with my mom. It was sort of a weekly ritual for us and I always made sure to be home in time to watch it with her. Of course, this was before DVR was a thing, or at least we never had it. I loved the dynamics of all the characters, Lorelei’s personality, and just the show as a whole. So, I was extremely excited that they decided to do a reboot of the show. I was even more excited when Lauren Graham wrote a memoir that would include some behind the scenes parts from the show.

While the book has Lauren’s easy and quirky voice, it also has the disjointed, chaotic thought process of Lorelei Gilmore. While that’s entertaining in short bursts on a show, it’s a bit tiresome in a memoir. Lauren would be describing something that took place recently and then would switch gears randomly and start talking about fashion, shooting commercials, or something else entirely different for pages before jumping back to the initial topic. This sort of thing happens a lot. There was also a lot of mentioning about how she was on a deadline to write this memoir and how her publicist kept calling her to see if it was finished yet. Which, made me feel like this was rushed.

Which would explain for all the random filler. I didn’t know a memoir could have so much mind-numbing filler to it. We have a whole chapter where Lauren sits down to watch every season of Gilmore Girls so that she can recap them for us. We literally get a recap on the fashion of Lorelei, the relationship changes of Rory and Lorelei’s love life, and other silly things that take place in the show. You know, the show we’ve all already watched. She gives little or sometimes no insight to what her personal experience was for that season or any insider info. I think because she couldn’t recall it all, perhaps? Instead, she just goes through all seven seasons, recapping away like we forgot what Gilmore Girls was all about. Needless to say there was a lot of skipping and skimming in this book for me.

When we finally get to the end of the book where she talks about the revival, that’s when I started to enjoy the book. We finally got some insight on what it was like on the set. She talked about Kelly Bishop talking to Edward Herrmann on the set. She would look at his massive portrait and ask him to make his presence known on the set that day, and little things like that where she would acknowledge him, and it had me tearing up. She went over what it was like when she finally found out what the ending scene to the series was. Those were the things I was hoping to get throughout the book. Instead the majority of it was just glossed over, one dimensional, glimpses that flitted through the pages with no real substance. Again, it makes me wonder, how pressed for time was Lauren to write this memoir?

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between was not what I hoped it would be. The title leads you to believe there’s going to be a lot of Gilmore Girls and instead we didn’t really see much of that. While it was interesting to read about her life before acting, I was really hoping for more. Everything just seemed superficial and rushed and I never really felt like I walked away with much understanding of Lauren or the people in her life.

 

 

Favorite part…

This part really stuck out for me because the way the cast found out that Gilmore Girls wasn’t returning was pretty messed up. Plus, it was one of the few parts that I felt like we actually got a look at what it was like during her time on the original set for the Gilmore Girls.

“Just like I’d never been on a long-running show before, I’d never been at the end of one either, and I didn’t know what the protocol was. That day, I was told that I was the first to know, and was asked to wait before reaching out to anyone. I assumed this meant everyone would be getting a call, and given the size of the cast, they needed time to do that. But I found out much later that Alexis and I were the only cast members who were officially informed, and others found out in far less conventional ways. Ed Herrmann learned the show was cancelled from the clerk at his video store in Connecticut, for example.”

 

 

8 Thoughts on “Review: Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham

  1. I couldn’t watch GG because of that (sorry! lol) so I know I couldn’t handle the book.

    For What It’s Worth

  2. I was eye balling this when it came out, glad I didn’t buy it lol

  3. I think this book was a hit or miss for a lot of people, sorry to hear it didn’t work for you, I’ve never read it, it looked interesting

  4. I hate to say this, but I never watched the Gilmore Girls and I always wondered what I missed. I mean the girl loves to read and there is coffee (see I know something) so it should be what I would like to watch. Might have to netflix them!

  5. I’ve never watched the Gilmore Girls, but as you know, I’m into Pop Culture, so I would definitely love to get the behind the scenes info on the show. Hugs…RO

  6. Not one for me, but thanks for sharing.
    sherry @ fundinmental

  7. I am sorry this one did not work for you.

  8. bookwormbrandee on 16 November, 2017 at 11:06 am said:

    I didn’t watch the show because it started after I’d stopped watching tv but I do know about GG and I was kinda excited about this book – even if I didn’t watch the show. I’m sorry it was such a letdown. Especially since you loved the show so much. I haven’t read many memoirs but even if it’s a memoir of a celebrity, I would hope it’d have more substance than fluff and this one doesn’t seem to have had much substance. It’s just too bad.

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