Bitter, aging film star Frie (born Frieda Kunkelheimer) knew she was unwelcome and unwanted at birth when she heard her grandmother say, "Big, ugly baby, you will bear the sins of your mother." She knew then she was not only unwelcome and unwanted she also knew that she was big and ugly. Indelibly, she had predicted her own future. Frie's journey takes us from the bucolic cornfields of Indiana, to the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco in the 60's, and finally to Hollywood where she becomes an icon for nearly two decades. Her one close friend and personal makeup artist is fearful and gay Robin Morris, who lives a life of imagined danger, pain and illness. When their plane crashes in the jungles of El Salvador while en route to South America to make a film, their self-absorbed lives must take a backseat to their survival.
I received a copy of this book at no charge in exchange for my honest review.
To me, this seemed like two distinct books. In the first half (ie the first book), we get to know Frieda and Robin, with great detail provided about their childhoods and their experiences as they grew to be adults. The second half of the book (ie the second book) happens after their plane crashes in El Salvador. At about the three quarters point, it got really violent ... two things happened that I didn't think were necessary.
It was a quick read ... I read it in a day (today). Though I enjoyed the writing style (I'd read others by this author), I liked the first half of the book better. It was interesting to get to know Frieda and Robin and their family members and I was looking to what happened when they finally met. But it didn't go in the direction I thought it would. I found there was a disconnect between the first and second halves.
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