Literary Scene: Three Celebrity Memoirs Released in May 2022

By Ryan G. Van Cleave | June 2022

Mean Baby: A Memoir of Growing Up 
(KNOPF, MAY 2022)
by Selma Blair

I confess—the reason I wanted to read this book was because Selma Blair captured my heart in Cruel Intentions, Legally Blonde, and The Sweetest Thing. (Okay, okay—Hellboyand Hellboy II as well!). To me, she was always a sweetheart, but apparently, she was known from the start as a “mean baby” because she had a snarling expression and basically just seemed ticked off. Like kids with an unfair rap, she decided to live up to it by behaving as poorly as possible—biting her sisters, lying about everything, and getting drunk on Passover wine (at age seven).

In this memoir, she has a surprisingly keen eye for detail that really helps make key moments in her life come alive on the page as she plays any number of roles both on screen and off. Daughter, sister, mother, celebrity, addict. Throughout her life, she felt a sense of darkness that plagued her, so she drank to escape, and she punished her body with an eating disorder. Eventually, she was diagnosed as having MS. Instead of it being yet another terrible thing in a life full of terrible things, the illness clarified a lot of issues for her and served in many ways as a pathway to salvation.

Mean Baby is an interesting read that reveals some well-earned truths about friends, family, and self. It’s also funny as often as it is heart wrenching. 

Ryan’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

We Were Dreamers: An Immigrant Superhero Origin Story
(William Morrow, May 2022)
by Simu Liu

The son of a Chinese mother and Indian father, Simu Liu has made quite a career as a writer, stuntman, and actor. But he’s best known for being the first Asian Marvel superhero (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings), and We Were Dreamers is his own origin story. 

Semi-spoiler—it’s a pretty good one.

At age four, Simu’s parents took him from China to Canada and it wasn’t a terrific situation. They found him hard to relate to and they considered him emotionally distant. Still, Simu did all he could to please them. Behaving well. Earning top grades. Winning math competitions. They were increasingly proud, but he was feeling less and less like himself. 

When Simu got canned from his first job at age 22 (accountant), he figured he had nothing to lose, so he put himself on a pathway into the acting world without really knowing what he was doing. But he had his own superpower—a massive chip on his shoulder from not being popular or especially good at sports as a kid to being an actor of color who got overlooked at every possibility. That chip kept him going despite landing terrible (sometimes offensive) roles, such as a caricature-ish Japanese mob boss or Scared Asian Guy in front of a computer.

Before Simu hit it big with Marvel, he auditioned four times for Crazy Rich Asians, and he still admits that it was hard not to get the gig. Did it hurt him? Yes. But it also served as more motivation that helped him keep pushing to the eventual success he found. He was able to shift his focus to support his culture and to make good art instead of seeking approval of others. 

In clear, relatable prose, We Were Dreamers captures all this and more in a humorous, inspiring manner. Yet it still has insight into how someone grows up in and between cultures, and it’s also about finding one’s family. The future is bright for Simu Liu as a writer.

Ryan’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Miss Memory Lane: A Memoir 
(Atria Books, May 2022)
by Colton Haynes

I wasn’t going to review this book until I saw that Colton himself reviewed it on Goodreads, saying, “I wrote this book…but I’m so excited to read it again.” With memoir, a lot of people get it all out there, and then want to move on. His fully committing to his own story and remaining excited about it in a seemingly genuine way? It worked for me.

The first chunk of this story has such hard-hitting family drama you might need to stop and remind yourself it’s real. Growing up in a teensy Kansas town, Colton discovered sex way too early in life such that he developed an unhealthy relationship with it. He’d also come out as gay as a teen prior to embarking on a modeling career, but when he launched an acting career, Colton was forced back into the closet. His people told him to lower his voice and tone down his mannerisms so people wouldn’t realize he was gay. It’s not surprising that Colton being unable to live his authentic life led to alcohol, sex, and drug addiction. Add in eating issues and the loss of his mother, and it’s impossible not to feel for this person who clearly felt worthless and alone despite seemingly having a lion’s share of success.

When Colton woke up in a hospital, he knew this was it. He’d lost the sight in one eye, nearly ruptured a kidney, and had two seizures. Not yet thirty, he had to change or he wasn’t going to make it.

Colton decided to change his life, and this book is part of that. He owns his past in the way one must for them to ever have a shot at a different future. If you come to this book wanting behind-the-scenes stories from Teen Wolf, Arrow, or American Horror Story: Cult, you’ll be disappointed. If you come to the book wanting an interesting memoir that reveals what it’s like to be a young LGBTQ+ actor in Hollywood, then you’ll find what you’re looking for.

The writing is as raw as the content, and most readers I know who’ve picked this up read it in one shot. There’s an honesty here which is so refreshing—it helps readers through the darkness, even when Colton lays everything in his life so bare. A friend of mine who read the book called Colton’s life “a freaking beautiful disaster.” That’s not a bad alternate title. 

Ryan’s Rating: 4.5 out of 5