What Falls Away: A Memoir

This is an exquisitely written memoir. I'm so glad that I read it as I never really knew much about Mia Farrow's life except what I read in newspapers or magazines (and that's been a while).Written in spare, beautifully crafted prose, as another review stated, "What Falls Away is a work that owes more to literary tradition than celebrity autobiography." She narrates and has the golden voice and her writing style is beautiful (could have been a writer of books, for certain).

She's a wonderful human being, with flaws of course, but if there were more people like her in the world, all would be well....Woody, well, that's a whole other story that was seemingly swept under the rug or if it wasn't then (1992), it sure has faded away show more today...(an eye opener about that guy). show less

Most of it is pretty good, but the Woody Allen stuff...so much dirty laundry. My first thought was "What a scum this guy must be," but then, I thought, "Well--there's two sides to every story." Not to say that I think Ms. Farrow is lying. I'm sure that Woody Allen is as much of a psychological mess as he makes himself out to be. But public scrutiny has already been hard enough on the man. Still, the parts about Frank and the Beatles and Ms. O'Sullivan were pretty entertaining.

Most of it is pretty good, but the Woody Allen stuff...so much dirty laundry. My first thought was "What a scum this guy must be," but then, I thought, "Well--there's two sides to every story." Not to say that I think Ms. Farrow is lying. I'm sure that Woody Allen is as much of a psychological mess as he makes himself out to be. But public scrutiny has already been hard enough on the man. Still, the parts about Frank and the Beatles and Ms. O'Sullivan were pretty entertaining.

Obviously this was an easy read since I started and finished it in one day. I don't need to explain who Mia Farrow is so I'll just say what I learned from reading her book, that was new information to me. I read the book 3-ish years before I watched Dylan's HBO (?) documentary so I basically knew nothing.

•I did not know she had polio as a child.
•She is a Complete. Idiot. when it comes to men. The whole Frank Sinatra thing!!!
•She adopted way too many kids.
•Two or three of the kids she adopted have committed suicide.
•She said she knew something was happening (Woody sexually abusing Dylan) from the time her daughter was a baby.
•The whole Woody / Soon Yi thing sounds even of a big deal to me after hearing her tell about it. show more •Soon Yi was 22 when the affair started, she never thought of Woody as a father, she didn't get along with Mia so probably never thought of her as a mother, and Soon Yi and Woody have been together for 26 years now and have two kids. show less

Fascinating and well written. Would like to read Woody Allen's POV but don't think he's written an autobiography.

I wanted to get this book, but I have too many Kindle books to read so I was more interested in the Audible edition. I didn’t like the audio quality for the sample that they played. For example, there was background music playing because I have hearing loss. It’s gonna be too hard for me to understand the book. I don’t know how much background music there’s going to be, but it didn’t strike me as a high-quality recording. And 1499, which is $15. Let’s not kid ourselves. I think the book is just too expensive. But I definitely want to read it because I want to know why Mia Farrow changed Soon Yi name to Gigi. Actually, I do want to hear her side of the story and I will give her fairness although I just don’t believe the show more things she says about Woody Allen. They’re too out of character for him to have actually done any of those things. show less