Book ~ "The Real Girl Next Door" (2011) Denise Richards

From Goodreads ~ We’ve read the scandalous headlines, watched her sexy breakout performances in "Starship Troopers" and "Wild Things", and seen her many public faces on her reality television show - the beautiful vixen, the devoted mother, the hard-working entertainer and the fun-loving friend. But how well do we really know Denise Richards? 

Like so many small-town girls, she dreamed of making it big in Hollywood. But following a painful, high-profile divorce from Charlie Sheen, she found herself raising their two young daughters alone as her mother was dying of cancer. Denise writes openly and honestly about these experiences and more: she lets you in on her childhood dreams, her fated move to Hollywood with her close-knit family, her rise to fame, the pressures of living in the spotlight, and the controversy surrounding her relationships. Through it all, she managed to keep her sense of humor and optimism. 

 She offers an up-close and personal look at her most intimate battle scars and the lessons she’s learned as she’s healed and grown. Denise’s story will resonate with anyone who has had to look within herself to find strength and courage when life is throwing curveballs. 

 Inspiring and uplifting, raw and revealing, Denise finally lets her fans in on the resilient woman behind the bombshell persona, the person her friends and family already know: The Real Girl Next Door.

I haven't seen a lot of what Denise Richards has been in ... I remember her mainly in The One with Ross and Monica's Cousin on Friends.  But I like reading bios and memoirs and this one caught my eye.

Though I didn't know a lot about her and wasn't a fan, I found it to be an good book.  I liked the writing style and found it to be an easy fast read.  As a head's up, there is swearing.  I think she'd be fun to hang with.

She starts by telling about moving to California with her family when she was a kid.  Rather than going to college, she worked in modeling which eventually led to acting.  She tells of meeting and marrying Charlie Sheen (I've never been a fan of his) and their eventual bitter divorce, though she doesn't give the details of why she left him, and of dating Richie Sambora and their break-up.

It was interesting to get a description of what it's like being behind the scenes ... like modeling in Japan, her dilemma about going nude in Wild Things, getting implants and eventually getting them downsized, raising two young daughters as a single mom, her close relationship with her parents (her mom died a couple years ago from cancer), etc.