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All That Is Bitter And Sweet: A Memoir (2011)

by Ashley Judd(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

034552361X (ISBN13: 9780345523617)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Ballantine Books

review 1: Film actor and May, 2010 Harvard Kennedy School graduate Ashley Judd’s new memoir is more than an autobiography. It’s a travelogue. It’s based solely or in part on six hundred fifty pages of personal diaries. Judd’s diaries take us on an extremely personal and sometimes painful journey through the first four decades of her life.What’s remarkable about Judd’s published confessional is what’s largely missing here. You won’t read a lot about how to make it in Hollywood, or what to do when you get there, or how to make movies. This is not a behind-the-scenes, backstage look at Tinsel Town. Nor will you find a lot of juicy gossip about Judd’s often-troubled relationship with her immediate family. Almost missing here is any mention of her true feelings t... moreoward her famous mother, Naomi and sister, Wynonna, for example. There are glimpses here and there, however, most notably when both siblings go through rehabilitation therapy at a residential treatment center in Buffalo Gap, Texas. We learn that perhaps in spite of all the healing that’s taken place in Judd’s family in the last five years, both Judd’s mother and older sister chose not to attend Ashley’s graduation ceremonies twice: once from the University of Kentucky and two decades later from Harvard. That speaks volumes.Judd’s equally famous husband, NASCAR and Indy race car champion driver Dario Franchitti is also largely in the background in this personal journal. We rarely get a glimpse of his personality or his relationship with his globetrotting wife.By far, the bulk of this published diary is an almost daily log of Judd’s travels to Third World countries on behalf of the global agency Population Services International. By re-living Judd’s journeys to Asia, Africa and Central America, you will discover several things: (1) Often Judd likes to refer to God as “she,” (2) Judd likes to refer to the “God of my understanding,” (almost as if He cannot be understood by mortal man), and (3) Judd believes her “God is inclusive,” (all religious faiths seem to make sense to her.) If your own spiritual roots lie in Biblical fundamentalism, as does Judd’s own early upbringing, this will come as a shock to you. There are two more things you’ll take away from this book: Judd likes very long, complicated sentences many of which are missing words. Finally, and more importantly, Ashley Judd is as close to being a modern-day Mother Theresa as you’ll know in your lifetime. Bottom line, Judd’s life today off the movie set and inside this book is almost entirely consumed by her personal crusade for feminist social justice.
review 2: I can't say that I like AJ or not, but as for the book itself, it is quite average, no new information. Her childhood experience is not that horrible compared to pretty much the rest of the world but it is interesting to read about what money can do for mental health recovery (Shades of Hope sounds expensive). Try some of the books written by some of the people she mentioned in her memoir, such as Somaly Mam, Nicholas Kristof, etc. less

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