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| Celebrity Detox | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: Grand Central Publishing
Category: EBooks
List Price: $17.99
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $8.00 (44%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  113 reviews
Sales Rank: 3029
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Dewey Decimal Number: 792.7028092
ASIN: B000UZPI8Y
Publication Date: October 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
When Rosie O'Donnell was 10 years old, her mother was diagnosed with cancer, and Rosie began to fantasize about what it would be like to become famous. As she puts it: "I began to dream I was Judy Garland or Bette. If only I could get famous, I believed my mother would live. Money would pour in from heaven. We would use that money to get her a special cure. For me, fame was survival." Told in Rosie's inimitable voice, Celebrity Detox is an unflinching look at her climb to fame and the experiences along the way that slowly led her to realize that fame was a dangerous addiction, a potent powder that, once inhaled, brings about both loss of self and a need for more, more, more. Aware that she was losing her humility and her humanity to the big glitz, Rosie stepped off the fame train in 2002, leaving her top-rated television show and going cold turkey for the next three years. Since that time, Rosie has changed a lot. She has done a lot of painting, spent her days raising her four children, gotten to know what silence sounds like and what it means to experience relative anonymity and the associated feeling of being a has-been. And then, in the Fall of 2006, she decided she was ready for a re-entry, this time as co-host of ABC's The View. In this book, Rosie tells the story of her detox and retox, and tries to answer the question of whether or not it is possible for the addict to return to the scene of the crime and, this time, avoid the perils of her fame addiction. Celebrity Detox will be an insider's guide to The View--Barbara Walters and Star and Ro and cameras and lights--and about television in general, its major players, the behind-the-scenes action, and a load of good gossip. But, more than that, as it moves between the past and present, it will tell the full story of a 1,098-day detox filled with the real stuff of life---family, friends, art, and a painful, mind-expanding journey from feeling lost to feeling found.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 108 more reviews...
 Life after fame isn't always Rosie October 9, 2007
216 out of 246 found this review helpful
This is an unprecedented book by an unprecedented Star!
Just like Rosie O'Donnell, "Celebrity Detox" is candid, humorous at times, compassionate, clever, and incredibly thought-provoking. If you think you know everything about Ro, you will be surprised after reading this. And, if you detest Ro and believe that she is the antichrist then you will also get a new understanding of the real Ro. Because she is nothing at all like that lunatic the press portray her as.
You can you say what you want about Rosie O'Donnell. I am sure there is nothing she hasn't heard and there's nothing she cannot take. But you cannot read "Celebrity Detox" and call Ro a coward. In the book, Ro courageously discusses her life after hitting it big and how her brief stint on "The View" came to a thunderous halt. This is the first book ever written by an A-list star that frankly details their own fame in such a forthright and impartial way. Through "Celebrity Detox," Ro has forever ripped that mysterious veil of secrecy off of the MSM.
As Ro has said, she wants to "let the book speak for itself." Who else can write a best-seller without doing any type of promotion? Ro doesn't care about being popular or about making lots of money or being famous. Maybe that's why she was able to write such a riveting and original book? This book was not written for money or for attention (another myth that the media tries to pass off as "fact.") All the proceeds from "Celebrity Detox" are going to Ro's Broadway Kids foundation. I wonder if a certain big-mouth billionaire gives even a tenth of what Ro does?
"Celebrity Detox: (The Fame Game)" is somewhat of a follow-up to Ro's extremely successful NY Times Bestseller, Find Me. It's hard to say which book I prefer because they are both works of art. Maybe that's also why Ro is so controversial (and unconventional?) Because art always attracts mixed feelings and is usually subjective. To some, they could be looking at a beautiful rose, and to others they might see something terrifying. Perhaps through her writings, Ro is trying to convey that art can be whatever you make of it?
Like a fine hand-made wicker basket, this book is woven together very intricately. Ro discusses her childhood in certain passages that may have a prevalence or a similarity to her most recent situations. There are parts of this book that are very sad, shocking and extremely tragic. Ro is especially delicate in these passages. But, Ro is nothing if not (always) candid. She gets it all out in "Celebrity Detox." And, Rosie doesn't care what the repercussions are because she has the truth on her side!
If you enjoyed Ro's latest book, I also recommend Find Me and Ro's 2006 documentary All Aboard: Rosie's Family Cruise. And I also recommend, Journal Revolution: Rise Up and Create! Art Journals, Personal Manifestos and Other Artistic Insurrections which includes some of Ro's art!
I have come to really admire Rosie because she gave so much of herself in this book. And, Ro gives me hope. She gives me hope that there are still decent people out there. She gives me hope that people still care. She gives me hope that no matter what life befalls there can still be mirth and a promise of a new start. Rosie O'Donnell is my shero.
Really Great - Very Quick Read and Powerful October 9, 2007
65 out of 79 found this review helpful
This is an exceptionally well written book. As a fan of Rosie's blogs, I didn't know what to expect, but she is not just an average writer. She writes with incredible honesty and almost artistic prose. I am yet another person who picked this up in the bookstore, tried to find out what happened on the day of the big fight with Elizabeth, and read the whole thing...and I am normally a very slow reader (and I hate reading for pleasure because I am in graduate school and have enough to read!) Anyway, unless I missed it - she actually skipped the Elizabeth fight. She did include the Kelly Rippa feud, the Ching Chong issue, and of course Donald Trump. Her opinions on him are made much more clear and the whole thing has so much more context now. The subsequent fallout from the Trump debacle (specifically, her relationship with Barbara Walters) was actually a big piece of this book, as she tied it back to betrayal issues with her own mother when she was being abused by a man.
Like the other reviewers said, the book gives a lot of insight into the real Rosie. She is clearly not this caricature portrayed in the news for the last year. Also, the book (like her) has also been poorly represented in the media. She does not really call Barbara Walters "tired." She's not unaware that she has abandonment issues, and sees Barbara Walters as a mother figure. It's a big part of what she talks about. (Some news show psychologist was psychoanalyzing Rosie and Barbara in this manner, but Rosie actually described the issue better herself.) The passage about Walters being "tired" is taken out of context from a letter to her brother where she writes about the *entire* situation on the View. She felt like the new kid in school - but a new kid that drives a Mercedes (I believe that was the exact line.) They asked her to be herself - but then to stay in a box at the same time. At some point, she talks about Barbara in the context of the overall view environment. In another page of brutal honesty, she admits that she believed Donald Trump's claim that Barbara Walters said that she regretted hiring her. The emotional carnage of this kind of betrayal (after past betrayals by her mother which she goes into) is pretty rough.
This is not 150 pages of Rosie whining and playing the victim really. It is a very behind-the-scenes look at a very complex woman (and a complex show) who is possibly more in touch with her emotions than anyone I've ever seen. She has an understanding of interpersonal dynamics that is remarkable. She may come across a little self important and emotionally strange at times, but that's how it is. For example, she e-mailed Elizabeth "I love you and I'll always protect you" at one point - in response to a little change that Elizabeth made in one of the show's segments. Rosie also saw Elizabeth's emerging independence (taking out the earpieces that they wear on the show) as a sign that she was converting her to be a better person or something. Maybe that was a little over the top.
I can see why she does not want to do interviews about this book. The stories and emotions in here are raw. Not everything is included, and if she were interviewed, it would be likely that she'd be taken into areas that she's not ready to discuss. She reveals something about a man coming into her room at night, and leaves it vague. It's pretty obvious that some kind of sexual abuse occurred, and I am still confused about whether or not her mother believed her when it kept happening after they cut down the tree (where the man supposedly came in from) - but those details are not really the point. The point is to think about her feelings when she told her mother that a man was abusing her and was told "you lie like a rug."
 I Can See Why Barbara Walters is Mad. . . October 10, 2007
33 out of 37 found this review helpful
. . .but she shouldn't be. She is of that generation/mentality that appreciates the surface image more than the reality. Rosie has stripped the varnish off of Barbara and shown her for what she is: an amazingly accomplished, dynamic, conflicted, emotionally frightened, well-intentioned woman. I'm sure Barbara sees it as a slam, but I came away from the book like Barbara more than I ever have. At least I felt I understood her now.
And Rosie doesn't spare this kind of critical evaluation from herself. She admits her failings readily.
The book is full of candor, honesty--just what anyone would expect from Rosie, even her detractors.
But it could have been better. So much of it feels disjointed: pieces of blogs, bits of interviews, excerpts from a discarded draft of the same book--all rest uneasily next to anecdotes surrounding her time on "The View," the program that she made must-see television by her mere presence.
But the book lacks focus (and yes, I know that this can be attributed to Rosie's unconventional "style," but hear me out). While ostensibly about Rosie's adjustment to fame, very little of that journey is chronicled here. There are snippets, but not enough to fully convey what that meteroic rise has been like for her. The relationship to Barbara Walters is what comes through most compellingly. Each moment chronicled between Rosie and Barbara is a real "scene," and it made me wish she had focused the book exclusively on her year at "The View, rather than moving back and forth through time and intercutting with blog material, etc.
But perhaps that's asking for too disciplined a product from a mind that clearly relishes jumping from one bit to another. I do think, however, it would have made a better book. "The View" material is really the most compelling material in the book, and even vague descriptions of sexual abuse are all used to serve that material. But people like Joy Behar and even Elisabeth Hasselbeck get little face time in these pages. And what about Jahero, Rosie's cult-inducing video blog segements that corresponded with her "View" appearances? The book would have been richer and more directioned if she had focused on this tumultuous year alone. After all, 60% of the book is about "The View," (in one way or another), and the other 40% just doesn't seem to be enough space to say all that Rosie is trying/wanting to say about fame.
But, in the end, the book earns three stars for its honesty and for Rosie's sometimes poetic prose. She has the raw makings of a very good writer--which is saying a great deal more than one can say about other celebrity-penned books. The woman emerges as complex, exasperating, fascinating, heroic--and someone you would like to know.
Rosie O'Donnell A Wonder Of The World! October 10, 2007
28 out of 35 found this review helpful
I pre-ordered this book on [...] a while ago, but I'm on vacation in Vancouver, Canada! I was having it sent to me here in Canada but I just couldn't wait. I went out and purchased Celebrity Detox (the fame game) and read it in one sitting. Wow is all I have to say! Wow! that Rosie has the courage to be so honest and forthcoming! Wow! that the publishers had the guts to back, publish and print such an amazing recollection of ones life, dreams and disapointment! Wow! on how lucky we all are to be able to read such an amazing piece of raw memory from one of our leading artists in the United States.
Rosie has always been on the forefront of changing the world and I'm glad to see that she doesn't hold back as she progresses through the journey of her life. Like her or hate her you will be able to admire the woman who says what the majority of amercians feel. She is a hero in my book and I feel lucky to have had the chance to say I was able to enjoy Rosie on screen, on tv and on paper.
Purchase Celebrity Detox and you will understand what makes her tick and why Rosie O'Donnell is who she is. This woman has been a humanatarian for years and has never asked for anything back but for us to keep an open mind about her opinions, views and ideas.
Risky, honest and compelling. October 10, 2007
25 out of 29 found this review helpful
Rosie is brave and her honesty is inspiring.
This book made me look at my own life and ask, am I living my life to the fullest? Am I present enough with my family/children? Do I appreciate the small moments of life, or do I rush through it? This is what Rosie does best, she holds a mirror up to her celebrity self and somehow we see ourselves in the reflection.
Bravo, Rosie.
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