GENRE: Nonfiction/Memoir
PURCHASE: link
MY GRADE: C
SYNOPSIS: Most people know Andrew McCarthy from his movie roles in Pretty in Pink, St. Elmo's Fire, Weekend at Bernie's, and Less than Zero, and as a charter member of Hollywood's Brat Pack. That iconic group of ingenues and heartthrobs included Rob Lowe, Molly Ringwald, Emilio Estevez, and Demi Moore, and has come to represent both a genre of film and an era of pop culture.
In his memoir Brat: An '80s Story, McCarthy focuses his gaze on that singular moment in time. The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction, and masculinity. New York City of the 1980s is brought to vivid life in these pages, from scoring loose joints in Washington Square Park to skipping school in favor of the dark revival houses of the Village where he fell in love with the movies that would change his life. Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, Brat is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.
MY THOUGHTS: I'm giving this 3 stars because of a complete lack of depth. It feels very incomplete and I honestly don't know why it was written if he didn't want to share much. I'm sure there's a lot about his life that he could have said but chose to say not a whole lot of anything. The title is correct-it's about his life in the 80s and not much past it, except for the death of his father in the 2000s and brief mention of his children. He never mentioned why his father always borrowed and never paid back money from him, or if he even knows himself what the money was for. I'm guessing he was into gambling and owed people money, and that's why he'd tell his family not to answer the phone sometimes. He was in the hospital room when his father was dying yet he never once said what he was dying/died from.
In his memoir Brat: An '80s Story, McCarthy focuses his gaze on that singular moment in time. The result is a revealing look at coming of age in a maelstrom, reckoning with conflicted ambition, innocence, addiction, and masculinity. New York City of the 1980s is brought to vivid life in these pages, from scoring loose joints in Washington Square Park to skipping school in favor of the dark revival houses of the Village where he fell in love with the movies that would change his life. Filled with personal revelations of innocence lost to heady days in Hollywood with John Hughes and an iconic cast of characters, Brat is a surprising and intimate story of an outsider caught up in a most unwitting success.
What I learned about Andrew is that he's a deeply insecure person and a pushover. He doesn't seem to have much of a relationship with his mother and three brothers or if he does he kept it to himself. I definitely would have liked to know more about those relationships. I'm assuming his deep insecurities with his appearance (he said he was scrawny and didn't have much body hair as a youth) lead him to abuse drugs and alcohol though he never actually said so. Overall, this was a big disappointment.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
I received this from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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