Last Girl Before Freeway: The Life, Loves, Losses, and Liberation of Joan Rivers Hardcover – 15 November 2016

Great read

Bennetts has written a wonderfully entertaining, carefully researched and juicy biography about one of comedy's scrappiest and most controversial figures, Joan Rivers. I have to admit that I've always found Rivers's brand of transgressive humor savagely funny, if not totally politically incorrect. Bennett does more than reveal the psychological origins of Rivers' fat-shaming comedic cruelty (her pathological insecurity, her imagined ugliness, her eating disorder --subsisting on Altoids and a few lettuce leaves, for example), she has given us a fascinating case study of human resilience in the face of daunting adversity. You might not like everything Rivers says and does, buy you will come away from this book in awe of her refusal to give up or give in to an impressive array of insults, disappointments, and failures. Anyone who has had a hard time in life--and who among us hasn't?--will find Bennetts's illuminating biography reason for hope, to say nothing of the fact that you will be laughing along the way.

Ein amusantes Buch und es lässt Joan's Kunst und Persönlichkeit scheinen. Es zu lesen hat mir Spaß gemacht und ich kann es, auf jeden Fall,weiter empfehlen!

Fabulous history of the legendary Joan Rivers, a must for a comedy fan, a little repetitive at times and the author doesn't always appreciate that Joan was a joker, nothing off limits, specifically her 'affair' with Carson, all of which in this book is blown way out of proportion, she NEVER claimed to have had an affair with Johnny, if you watch the TMZ clip online, anyone can see her comments were meant as a joke, Bennett's just doesn't get the humour. Otherwise a detailed biography of her highs and lows, just don't read everything written as fact. Take with a pinch of salt folks, it's all a joke.

I kept reading and reading and reading Leslie Bennetts book about Joan Rivers and it seemed to never end! Every aspect of River's tortured personality was discussed, analyzed, scrutinized and judged over and over and over. Bennetts is an excellent writer so I finally decided that her subject was simply a mystery to her biographer. I agreed. Joan Rivers was an unhappy, witty, ambitious, crude, clever discontent who lived to see amazing professional success that never satisfied her. She would do anything to succeed and that frequently included humiliating anyone who caught her eye or attention. Most of her material was bashing people in the most vicious fashion and she did this by hiding behind her comedy. I saw Rivers perform during her Johnny Carson days. I thought she was funny on his show. Her live performance was appalling. She lurched across the stage dissing everyone and anyone. She played to the first row of Hadassah ladies who seemed to be the only ones amused. She was obsessed by female genitalia and described her visits to gynecologists in lurid and unfunny fashion. We left at intermission which this book told me delighted her.Female comedians describe her as their role model, idol and the original model for breakthrough female comedians. Give me a break. If Howard Stern is the litmus test, maybe. Most women are not as damaged as Joan Rivers was. Nor are we that interested in hurting others as she was hell bent on doing to prove the point that she was somebody. The best anecdote in the whole book is the dinner party where George Hamilton brought Elizabeth Taylor as a surprise guest. River's smarmy attention to her guest was indicative of the bully she was and the class act Taylor was. Who had the real sense of humor?Part of me felt sorry for her( and her victims) part of me despised her and her anger but all of me was glad that this book, well written as it was, finally ended.Hopefully Ms Rivers won't visit me from the beyond.