Stories I Only Tell My Friends: An Autobiography by Rob Lowe

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Publication date: 2011
Publisher: Henry Holt and Company
Pages: 306
My rating: 4 stars
Ages: 18+

Actor, director, and writer Rob Lowe offers an inside look into his life. Starting with his parents' divorce all the way up through his time on the West Wing, Lowe offers an honest, no holds barred story. He offers no excuses, but tells it like it is, from how he wanted to become an actor, to being on the set of Star Wars, to his alcoholism.

While I was reading Lowe's book, I kept telling everyone how amazing it was. First, because it was insane to me how many people he met--even before he became famous. He was friends with Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez, giving him access to their father Martin. He dated Cary Grant's daughter, was given access to Liza Minnelli's hotel room, went to school with Robert Downey Jr., met LaVar Burton the week before he became famous for Roots. The writing is mostly in the present tense, and the mentions of most of these people are casual. Lowe really encapsulates what it was like, without seeming to let everything that happened since then influence how he wrote about it.

The stories about his acting jobs are fascinating, and it's interesting to see how different and similar teen actors where then compared to now. But the part of the book that got to me--the part I actually shed a few tears during--was when he decided to seek help for his alcoholism. The honesty as he describes how he knew he needed to stop and how he discovered what was important is moving.

There is some strong language, and references to sex and drugs, which is why I put the age rating up.

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