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My Life So Far
by Jane Fonda

8.0 based on 13 reviews read critic reviews how did we calculate this? based on 10 votes read user comments rate this book

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• Official Publisher Site

The 67-year-old activist, actress and workout proponent reflects back upon her eventful life.

Random House, 624 pages
04/05/2005
$26.95

ISBN: 0375507108

Nonfiction
Biographies & Memoirs

All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...

Houston Chronicle Clifford Pugh

Whether you love her or hate her, all but her most venomous critics would have to conclude she has lived a fascinating life. As celebrity books go, this is a good one.

Los Angeles Times Susan Salter Reynolds

Fonda runs the gamut. To hold this book in your hands is to be astonished by how much living can be packed into 60-plus years. [5 Apr 2005, p.E1]

San Francisco Chronicle David Kipen

Fatteningly rich, frequently maddening but unexpectedly quite moving new memoir.

The New York Times Janet Maslin

In her sisterly, enveloping memoir, My Life So Far, this chameleon appears in yet another incarnation: soap opera queen.

The New York Times Book Review Maureen Dowd

At first you think how much more readable her book would be if an editor had chopped out large chunks of ponderous psychic burrowing. But then you realize it all has to be in there, in her own voice.

The Guardian Natasha Walter

This book's similar mixture of the raw and the studied gives it a surprising force. Fonda may not give us an answer to all her incarnations, but she gives us the feel of them, the play of them, which is also the feel and the play of 20th-century America.

Daily Telegraph Laura Thompson

She (Fonda) is a remarkable woman, and My Life So Far, which is an unusually worthwhile autobiography, bears the firm imprint of her complex, febrile and essentially noble character.

Daily Telegraph Gerald Kaufman

Fonda, of course, has the right and the status to tell her story any way she wants, but I do wish her editors had taken their scissors to her stylistic excesses.

Sydney Morning Herald Daphne Guinness

Fonda's story is self-flagellation pure and simple, and reading it is curiously therapeutic. If someone so talented, good-looking and successful can go through such mental monstrosities and come out smiling, maybe we will, too.

Atlantic Monthly Tom Carson

That Fonda can still be an unconscious narcissist after all these years is triumphant proof that she's as American as smart bombs and Bozo.

Washington Post Jonathan Yardley

That sense of oneself as red-hot center of the universe is pretty hard to stomach, and there's a good deal of it in My Life So Far.

New York Observer Ann Patchett

Again and again, she springs into action when it might have been better to wait and think things through, but it's that constant drive to leap that makes hers a compelling life and makes this an interesting book, even if it is bloodless at times. [18 Apr 2005, p.24]

Publishers Weekly

The actress-cum-activist-turned-aerobics instructor (and now philanthropist) has a lot to say and, for the most part, it's interesting-if readers can hang on through the too-frequent, lengthy passages of self-analysis.

The average user rating for this book is 8.0 (out of 10) based on 10 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

bryan g gave it a7:
Ms. Fonda is a brilliantly enigmatic sojourner - or so we are encouraged to conclude in her revisionist knuckle-gnawing autobiography. For all those put off by her self-absorbtion - puh-leese, you've purchased a book by an actor about her favorite actor on the world stage who happens to be herself.. so get over it and appreciate that this remarkable personage is an excellent writer if you forgive the occassional clumsiness inherent in writting with one hand while holding up a mirror in the other. It was great fodder for conversation with my wife and with my daughter. Another critic called it a great date book. I agree, and I am grateful for Ms. Fonda's fulminant frankness. To potential readers: just supend judgement, and don't take her as seriously as she takes herself, and you'll probably enjoy this casual read.

Asiya S gave it a9:
Extremely candid. A good book for mothers and daughters to read together. All young girls must read it. It clearly illustrates that even fairly intelligent women can get victimized by men if they lack self respect and self esteem. Jane Fonda's self disclosure is shocking at times, but one thing that this book certainly encourages you to do is self reflect !

Marilyn R gave it a10:
Brutally honest writing! She stands up for what she believes in and puts her money where her mouth is! Something so lacking in our society and leaders of today! Loved it!

Beth C. gave it an8:
Jane Fornda certainly had a fascinating life, and this autobiography brings her to life, warts and self-indulgence and all. It's hard to imagine that Jane, who always appeared so self-assured, was so dependent on her husbands' preferences, but that's part of what makes her real.

Linda D gave it an8:
I'm not a Fonda fan, although I respect her body of work. Yes, she's self-absorbed, yes she's grating. Still, I found this book riveting. She does let us get into her mind, and that's so refreshing in the world of celebrity where a vacant smile is considered glamorous.

Wanda C gave it an8:
travel thru life with jane , in Hollywood and Europe, and see how a woman changes as a result of growth and experience.

Bill C gave it a10:
Superb book, very readable.

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