High On Arrival (edition 2009)

needed some mindless reading, this sure covers it. Holy crap what a disaster. Like watching a train wreck. She spared nothing and seemed to have miraculously come out the other side a whole person. Her fortitude is nothing short of staggering. ( )

74 ( )

Although her story was interesting, it got boring in parts. Same old thing, over and over again. She didn't speak much about her recovery treatments, other than the fact that she was desperate. Some chapters left me sleepy, some left me simply bored. She did talk about the issues on "One Day at a Time" and the tormented relationships that she created while under the influence. This was only somewhat of a good book. ( )

Mackenzie shares her name-dropping, drug-reminiscent, sexually exploited memories in this tell all memoir. Purely drivel but fun to hear stories of those such as Paul McCartney and wonder what it was like to grow up with them in your life. ( )

As far as most people go, I'm a fairly new Mackenzie Phillips fan. In my twenties now, I was a child who grew up watching her on the Disney Channel show So Weird and I fell in love with her cool, quirky vibe and talent. So, of course, her more recent struggles were a shock to me as I knew little of her past as I wasn't born then. When I heard that she had a memoir coming out, I rushed to get it so I could learn more about the life of someone I had grown up admiring.

Her life was filled with sex, drugs, dangerous behavior, and rock and roll. The memoir is chock full of her escapades as a child around the time of American Graffiti, her teenage years during One Day at a Time with the always bubbly Valerie Bertinelli, and her adult years where she toured with the New Mamas and the Papas. You watch her go from drug addict to sober and back again all within the 300 pages of her autobiography and watch her do it with as much kindness, acceptance and grace as is possible for someone who was so publicly humiliated time and time again. The memoir, while written with a co-author, is written in her telltale voice. Anyone who has heard her speak outside of her acting roles can easily hear Mack's own voice while reading through the pages. That lends an authenticity to High on Arrival that not all memoirs have, and it makes the book truly feel like you are just having a talk with a good, old friend.

I imagine that a lot of people will have read the book to hear about the sordid details of her relationship with her father, John Phillips of the Mamas and the Papas. However, there is so much more to her and the memoir than her trials and tribulations with her dad. For those who love juicy gossip from what Mackenzie calls "the City of Glitter", this memoir is full of some of the juiciest with a high profile cast of characters. I'd definitely recommend this autobiography to fans of Phillips herself and to those who love Hollywood drama, especially from the 60s and 70s. At times, High on Arrival can be hard to slog through as a lot of the memories blur together due to their similarity and some realizations tend to be rehashed over and over again. Still, this is a solid memoir and an easy read. Three stars. ( )