I really enjoyed getting to read this biography about Joan Crawford, it had that element that I was looking for and enjoyed from this type of book. It worked with everything that I wanted and learned a lot about Joan Crawford. Samuel Garza Bernstein has a great writing style and it worked with the research element overall.

A really great and thorough approach to the star that we gays have spent so much energy venerating and destroying. It does a lot to humanize the woman that we hav essentially treated as a ragdoll for our own pleasure and fantasy and mockery and projection an ddestruction. Very thorough historical approach, great visuals, great contextualization, great reference to resource.

My only negative is that the self-indulgent imagining of Joan as a 2024 Instagram Influencer character gives right back in to the appropriative gay destructive tendency to turn women into paperdolls that we get to toy with and turn into our objects of affection and rejection. It slips back uncomfortably into appropriating her, rather than liberating her, as the book had done so well apart from those moments.

Also, the photoshopped Eyes of Tammy Faye/AHS/Multiverse Of Madness posts are creepy and also very paperdoll-y.

#Netgalley #FromNetgalley

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for the chance to read and review this book. All opinions expressed are my own.
I enjoyed learning more about Hollywood icon Joan Crawford. I like the way it was written in chronological order from the beginning of her career to the end. The only parts I skipped over was when the author tried to put Joan Crawford into modern day life-I didn't see the point. Other than that, it was a good overview of her life and career.

This biography/ filmography was a lot of fun,, despite some rather serious flaws. I liked how it was organized - with Crawford’s life broken into phases, with the biography of each period, followed by a breakdown of Crawford’s films from the period, with a brief synopsis of each film. What I didn’t like was the little section in each phase with an alternative look about what Crawford might have been up to if she had been that phase’s age during modern times. This seemed self indulgent and unnecessary. And the whole book badly needed another pass or three with the editor. The narration would frequently slide without warning (or punctuation) into a lengthy (and often unattributed) quote.

But, for a person like myself who loves both golden-age Hollywood history, it was just so much fun I couldn’t hold a grudge. I dropped two stars for the flaws, but added one back in for the fun!

I found the format of this book very challenging. We’re recounting the past. Now we’re pretending Joan Crawford is starring in Barbie. Now we’re actually listing her films. If I thought many of the pretend modern day film castings made sense, I would have enjoyed them more.

I found the biographical information to be more shallow than I would’ve liked. I suppose this book might be for Joan Crawford super fans, and I do not qualify.

This was a great read to explore the life of Joan Crawford with information that I didn't about her previously.

I’ve always had an interest in knowing more sbtbJoan Crawford. I cannot wait to share my thoughts on this. She is a Hollywood legend.