Then Again (Keaton) - Book Reviews

Book Reviews
[A] far-reaching, heartbreaking, absolutely lucid book about mothers, daughters, childhood, aging, mortality, joyfulness, love, work and the search for self-knowledge. Show business too…this book manages to present the full spectrum of women's experiences, from babyhood to adolescence, youthful insecurity…to liberating adulthood to slow, lingering death. Its power as a collage has been greatly enhanced by tight, punchy editing of the fragments that Ms. Keaton variously writes or excerpts. Some of its stories are universal and painful, yet this book is not mired in melancholy. Instead it's inspiring in its empathy, wisdom and self-knowledge.
Janet Maslin - New York Times


[R]ich and ruminative, provocatively honest, jumbled and jittery and textured. It speaks in two voices: Keaton is bitingly wry, ironic and tough about herself, but pleadingly earnest and passionate when writing of her mother, to whom she feels she owes her success, her self-esteem—just about everything. It's as if she's bargaining with her readers: she'll open her life to view and dish the dirt she knows we want, as long as we love her mother as she did. It's worth taking her up on it.
Sheila Weller -New York Times Book Review


Although peek-behind-the-curtain moments are delicious—Woody Allen! Warren Beatty! Jack Nicholson!...this is a [memoir] about a mother and a daughter, with insights and confessions and lessons to which all readers can relate.
Wall Street Journal

 
Then Again reads like the diary of an ordinary woman who suddenly became a movie star, who doesn’t quite believe any of it happened, but it did.
Los Angeles Times


Both heartbreaking and joyful, [Then Again] covers the gamut of life experiences facing all women.
Chicago Sun-Times


For anyone looking to join one woman’s—albeit a famous woman’s—touching and funny journey into the vortex that is the parent-child relationship, Then Again features an especially honest tour guide.
USA Today
 

A poem about women living in one another’s not uncomplicated memories.... Part of what makes Diane Keaton’s memoir, Then Again, truly amazing is that she does away with the star’s ‘me’ and replaces it with a daughter’s ‘I.’
Hilton Als - New Yorker


As warm, funny, and self-deprecating as Keaton’s onscreen persona—[Then Again] traces a profound dramatic arc: that of a young woman coming into her own as an artist, and of a daughter becoming a mother.
Vogue 


This book feels like Diane Keaton. Which means it’s lovable.
Entertainment Weekly
 

This audio production of Keaton’s memoir delivers something you won’t get in the print edition: Diane Keaton herself. As a narrator, Keaton’s personality, talent, and vulnerability shine through.... This audio weaves Hall’s journal entries, by turns joyous and painful, with Keaton’s memories from her childhood and adult life. Entertaining and a must for fans.
Publishers Weekly