The Princess Diarist only partly delivers on the title

I was warned right in the title that Carrie Fisher would share her diary. On that she doesn’t disappoint. But the title kind of promises details about life on the set of the first Star Wars movie. On this The Princess Diarist falls short.

The Princess Diarist by Carrie Fisher ★★★

Fisher loiters for an excruciatingly long time on her affair with Harrison Ford, but somehow only lightly addresses the topic. She talks more about how she thinks she felt at the time about the affair, not being able to recall any specifics. As for what life was like on set, that’s something she didn’t seem to have written much about in her diary.

This book is for you if you are a diehard Carrie Fisher fan or are fond of passages like this:

“Trying relentlessly to make you love me, but I don’t want the love – I quite prefer the quest for it. The challenge. I am always disappointed with someone who loves me – how perfect can he be if he can’t see through me?”

The more interesting passages discuss how playing Princess Leia changed her life. It’s disturbing to hear how so many fans conflated her with the role she played.

Fisher writes:

“I went to Madame Tussauds to see the wax statue they’d made of me. Well, not me, actually. That would have been someone lying in bed watching old movies on TV, drinking a Coke with one hand while adjusting her dog Gary’s tongue with the other. The statue they made was of Princess Leia me.”