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Mommie Dearest
Christina Crawford Book Review

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Plot Summary of Mommie Dearest
"In 1939, at the height of her box-office popularity, Joan Crawford adopted her oldest daughter, Christina. As her career falters and one marriage after another hits the rocks, Hollywood's diva of the 1940's turns to alcohol binges and wild rages towards her adopted child. If one believes Tina Crawford's telling, her starlet mother was an abusive and manipulative borderline personality whom no one dared cross for fear of her nearly-omnipotent retribution. Whether destructive midnight tirades or a drunken attempt to kill her, Christina forgives her mother over and over and tries to make amends. Joan sends Tina to various private schools with irrational instructions that she cannot leave the grounds or even have clothing. When the grown Christina begins a life of her own, her unstable mother attempts to overtake her marriage and her film career, keeping a strangehold on Christina's life until her death in 1977.

NO.... WIRE.... HANGERS!!!!"

Jennifer Martin-Romme, Resident Scholar



Review Analysis of Mommie Dearest
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Kids growing up/acting up? Yes
Kids: - parental abuse
Family, hate Yes
Struggle with: - Mother
Period of greatest activity? - 1900+

Subject of Biography
Gender - Female
Profession/status: - actor/actress/producer
Age: - 40's-50's
Eccentric/Mental Yes
Eccentric: - eccentric - obsessed - mentally ill - deluded - emotionally unstable
Biography of famous person? Yes
Ethnicity - White
Nationality - American (!)
How sensitive is this person? - mean, arrogant
Sense of humor - Cynical sense of humor
Intelligence - Average intelligence
Physique - very athletic

Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings? - 2 ()
United States Yes
The US: - California
City? Yes
City: - Los Angeles
Misc setting - Fancy Mansion
Century: - 1930's-1950's

Style
Person - mostly 1st
Accounts of torture and death? - explicit references to torture
Book makes you feel? - depressed
Writer's slant towards subject: - very unfavorable
Story of entire life, or part? - story of nearly entire life
Pictures/Illustrations? - A lot 11-15 B&W
How much dialogue in bio? - roughly even amounts of descript and dialog
A LOT of info about personal vices? Yes
Lot of titilating info about love life? Yes
How much of bio focuses on most famous period of life? - 76%-100% of book
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Cheaper by the Dozen by Frank B. Gilbreth Jr.


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