The Best Awful A Novel Deals on Carrie Fisher

The Best Awful: A Novel

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Editorial Reviews

When we left Suzanne Vale at the end of Carrie Fisher's bestselling Postcards from the Edge, she had survived drug abuse, rehab, and Hollywood celebrity. The Best Awful takes Suzanne back to the edge with a new set of troubles -- not the least of which is that her studio executive husband turned out to be gay and has left her for a man.

Lonely for a man herself, Suzanne decides that her medication is cramping her style, and she goes off her meds -- with disastrous results. The "manic" side of the illness convinces her it would be a good idea to get a tattoo, cut off her hair, and head to Mexico with a burly ex-con and a stash of OxyContin. As she wakes up in Tijuana, the "depressive" side kicks in, leading Suzanne through a series of surreal psychotic episodes before landing her in a mental hospital. With the help of her movie star mom, a circle of friends, and even her ex-husband, she begins the long journey back to sanity.

Based on a truant's story, The Best Awful is by turns highly comic and darkly tragic, a roller-coaster ride through the dizzying highs and crushing lows of manic depression, yet containing all the fast and furious wit that made Postcards from the Edge both a bestselling novel and a hit movie.

Carrie Fisher's The Best Awful returns Postcards from the Edge fans to the often hilarious, occasionally tragic, but always captivating world of Suzanne Vale, a bi-polar, celebrity talk show host with a six-year old daughter, a gay ex-husband, an aging starlet mother, and an unbreakable will to survive. After Suzanne stops taking her medication, Fisher treats us to the wild, hysterical ride that follows Suzanne's manic episodes, including a search for Oxycontin in Tijuana with her tattoo artist and a new house guest in the form of Hoyt, a clinically depressed patient Suzanne picks up at her psychopharmacologist's office. Even after the inevitable psychotic break lands Suzanne at Shady Lanes, where she's the "latest loony to hit the bin," Fisher never deviates from her trademark wit and uncanny ability to find truth in every irony:

You entered the hospital broken, found some other like broken patient people, and once in their company, looked down on the other more pathetic inhabitants of the bin you shared, those flying even lower than you and your lo-flung co-conspirators...

An insider's look at the Hollywood most of us only read about in supermarket checkout lines, The Best Awful doesn't strive to be anything other than what it is--a rambunctious, honest, wise-cracking trip to rock bottom and back again. Supporting characters are just that, a backdrop against whom Suzanne hopes to find a plausible sense of self. For readers who can accept this novel for what it is, The Best Awful promises over 250 pages of uninhibited entertainment. --Gisele Toueg

Customer Reviews

Definitely not the best awful.

Reviewed by N. Pierre, 2009-08-13

I slogged through almost 100 pages of this book before just giving up. I kept waiting for something to happen. Some movement, some dialog - SOMETHING. But it was just blah blah blah. Not even the wittiest blah blah blah. This is the third of Carrie Fisher's books that I have read and will definitely be the last.

There is a limit to how much background I need on any given character and this book (at least as much as I could stand to read) went waaay beyond that. Was she getting paid by the word?

The Best Awf

Reviewed by Kenneth E. Smith, 2009-04-01

Even though this is fictional novel the story of Suzanne through her experience with bipolar disorder is as real as it gets. A great book for those who personally experience this very difficult illness and/or their close family and friends. I highly recommend this book.

Not Worth Reading

Reviewed by Designed2Dazzle, 2008-12-07

After years of reading mostly non fiction, I finally had the time and inclination to get back to reading fiction. After enjoying all of the Jane Green, Gigi Levangie Grazer and Candice Bushnell novels, I tried this book... but try as I may, I was unable to read it. It just seems to be a series of ramblings and observations with no real story line. I liked Carrie Fisher in Star Wars and wanted to read about how her life was with a famous mother. She has a story to tell.... but should have let someone who is a good writer tell it for her. Luckily I just borrowed this book from the library and didn't waste money buying it.

funny but scatterbrained

Reviewed by anibani, 2007-11-21

The main character is bipolar, with a short attention span when manic. I felt this book was the same way. It is entertaining and with many colorful characters, Suzanne Vale (narrator and protagonist) is very witty and has a fantastic way with words. But the events in this book do not flow naturally, instead there seems to be one disconnected crisis after another, as if a stand-up comic ran out of material but kept going on and on until she filled 270 pages. Even the ending seems an unrealistic, forced resolution. But it does offer insights into bipolar disorder, celebrity life, and the realities of a mental institution. It is hilarious writing and has stretches (the last 100 pages) where excitement built up. But with Ms. Fisher's obvious talent, it could have been so much better.

"Awful" is right

Reviewed by Shoppinglvr, 2007-03-16

I bought this book on cd, read by the author. If I were not trapped in a car driving for 6 hours with nothing else to do, I would never have finished it. It was painful. Ms. Fisher clearly paid for this to be published out of her own pocket. And she should have paid someone else to read it too, since she was way over the top.

Stringing together a bunch of "SAT" words and profanities to try to hide the fact that she is a poor writer just doesn't work. It became laughable as my co-worker and I waited to hear what would happen to the annoying main character in this ridiculous book. At the end, we both wanted our 6 hours back.