I’ve always been intrigued by Carrie Fisher, especially when I learned she was also a writer/script doctor (e.g. Hook, Sister Act, and even the Star Wars prequels). So I wanted to see how she wrote. The verdict? Carrie Fisher writes like a mother f**ker.

The Princess Diarist is her memoir from working on Star Wars, based on journals that she kept at the time. Star Wars has lots of “archaeological artifacts” but little personal accounts from the time. She goes into detail about living the Hollywood life, the audition, the creation of the buns, what George Lucas was like, did she have an affair with Harrison Ford, what said affair/relationship was like. What’s missing is her work as a screenwriter. Maybe that’s in a different book?

But all in all, the book just made me feel bad. I’m not sure why, exactly. Bad about the Star Wars fans, bad about celebrities. Fisher talks about being everyone’s first masturbatory fantasy, a sordid affair with a married man for the sake of “having fun”, the good and bad of fan conventions that border on ridicule. A large chunk is straight lifted from her diaries, and I had my fill of that from “Notes to Boys” by Pamela Ribon. They’re funny for a minute, but then they’re insipid. Fisher’s not the hero of her own story.