First published 2009
Melissa Gilbert opens her story as the beloved child actress who played Laura "Halfpint" Ingalls on Little House on the Prairie. Millions of viewers watched her grow up on screen in what seemed like an idyllic world. Behind the cameras, Gilbert struggled with a different reality. She partied with the Brat Pack, dated celebrities like Rob Lowe and Billy Idol, and fell into destructive patterns of addiction and codependence. The actress who brought joy to countless families found herself unable to love the person she had become. Gilbert chronicles her path from buck-toothed child star to Hollywood starlet, then through the darkness of self-destruction toward sobriety and self-acceptance. She discovers that the admiration and popularity her television career brought her meant nothing without self-respect. Through hard work, tenacity, and eventually a solid marriage, Gilbert learns to embrace her multiple identities. Her memoir reveals an imperfect but honest journey of a woman who must reconcile her public image with her private struggles to find genuine happiness.
Genres: addiction, 20th-century, coming-of-age, autobiography, contemporary, biography-memoir, 21st-century, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: celebrity, coming-of-age, self-discovery
Setting: Hollywood
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
367 pages · Hardcover · Gallery Books
Content warnings: addiction, alcohol-abuse, depression, drug-use, mental-illness, self-harm, substance-abuse