Monday, February 14, 2011

CR Review #7 : Nellie Oleson!!

Yes, I read "Confessions of a Prairie Bitch". I picked it up and started reading, and didn't stop until I was finished. It was extremely entertaining.

I'm not usually a biography person, but I saw this at the library and suddenly had flashbacks to all those Monday nights when I was 5 or 6 years old...waiting all day for Little House on the Prairie to come on tv, and getting so mad at that Nellie Oleson every time she tried to do something mean to Laura Ingalls. I decided on a whim to give it a try and see what Allison Arngrim had to say. Honestly, I expected it to be mostly about her life post-Little House, as an AIDS activist (I remembered reading about her activism after her on-screen husband passed away from AIDS). And yes, there was plenty of interesting information about her life as an AIDS volunteer and her friendship with Steve Tracy (who played Percival on Little House). But there was so much more that I did not expect: the crazy childhood stories (she grew up in the Chateau Marmont!), her crazy show-biz family, the horrific sexual abuse scandal, her life-long friendship with Melissa Gilbert, or the fact that the girl who played Mary Ingalls was the devil incarnate.

Its a really quick and entertaining read that I would recommend to anyone who ever watched Little House, her descriptions of the actors and characters from the show are so well painted on the page, and so easy to get a feel for. I'm thinking its time for me to introduce my oldest daughter to Little House now. Here's hoping she'll enjoy it as much as I did!

1 comment:

  1. I always knew Mary must be evil! This book just jumped even higher on my To Read list.

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