Note Found in a Bottle

Rating:
Summary: honest and finely crafted
Review: I honor Ms. Cheever for exposing her life in such a way that illuminates the denial and distortion that accompanies this disease. I thought it was extremely well written and unsparing prose. I recommend this book to anyone with a soul which has been cracked and mended. She has real talent; I hope she remembers that when she reads some of the detritus herein.

Rating:
Summary: Is it the alcohol... or Cheever?
Review: I raced through this book, believing I would arrive at the place where Cheever would see herself clearly, judge herself more acutely, and change her life. Ten pages before the end, she "finds God"--which seems to mean something rather amorphous and unchallenging. It's not clear, because, though Cheever has given us all the details of her lousy relationships, she refuses to say much about why she stopped drinking. When the writing isn't too New-Yorker-precious, it's good; you are immersed in a culture of drink. But I concluded that it was not alcohol causing her problems, but Cheever's self-absorbed personality. And her judgment hasn't improved: she says she was married to three "extraordinary" men, but the two who fathered her children don't seem like great husbands or fathers. An odd book, unsatisfying and full of name-dropping.

Rating:
Summary: Skip this book and read "Drinking: a Love Story"!
Review: I read this book because I thought it might give me some insights into fighting alcoholism- especially fighting alcoholism as a woman. I also expected that, in addition to the insights I could enjoy beautiful prose. I did not get any insights and there was very little that was beautiful in the prose. Forget this book and read "Drinking: A Love Story."

Rating:
Summary: Still Daddy's Girl, and Cashing In On It
Review: I read this book in a single sitting, which was all it deserved. Could Susan Cheever possibly love herself more while claiming otherwise? The name dropping, the cashing in on her famous name (would we care if this was an anonymous drunk rather than the scion of a genius?), the relentless references to her good looks and the aphrodisiac effect she apparently had on men throughout the world...yawn. I found Carolyn Knapp's book far more compelling. Cheever takes a plodding, self-important tone in her writing that I associate with the worst of women's magazines. What a dissapointment.

Rating:
Summary: Surprisingly bad
Review: I recently purchased Note Found in a Bottle : My Life As a Drinker by Susan Cheever, despite the awful reviews posted here. I thought, it can't be that terrible. But it is. It truly is absolutely dreadful. It reads like a tabloid newspaper one might skim at a supermarket checkout counter. It just didn't feel real or truthful or honest to me. I'm sorry to say that I must agree, this is one book better left on the shelf.

Rating:
Summary: Awful-Nothing like cashing in on Daddy's name
Review: I started this book hoping to find a thoughtful, absorbing account of how somebody can sink into alcoholism but ultimately survive. Was I off base. What I found instead was a lurching, unfocused, egocentric chronicle of all of Cheever's various love affairs and famous people she would just happen to bump into for lunch. The first few chapters, when she talks about the origins of her alcoholism and how widely social drinking was accepted in the 50s and 60s, are moderately interesting, but the book quickly degenerates from there into a litany of name-dropping and sexual escapades. Who cares? If she was trying to impress readers with her supposed attractiveness, I think she needs to wake up and get a life. Not only is her egocentricity and immaturity overwhelming. At one point she compares herself to Shirley Jackson-I wanted to ***. If this book hadn't been written by someone with a famous name, it never would have seen the light of day.

Rating:
Summary: Talent wasted through incessant name-dropping
Review: I suppose that the author will be called "brave" by some reviewers for "speaking out" about her alcoholism, but let's face it, it's well-trod ground by now. What's most interesting, to me, about this book is how long it took Susan Cheever to realize that incessant drinking, promiscuity, submitting to the gropings of a lecherous therapist, and much more, were not in her best interests, to say the least. As someone who grew up in an alcoholic, violent family, who didn't enjoy the privileges that the Cheever name and connections brought, I think that despite her prolific writing career, the author hasn't done nearly enough to get her nose out of her navel. (At one point, I felt as though I read one more self-reference to how Susan Cheever felt "pretty," I'd scream.) Susan Cheever needs to stay out of Elaine's for awhile, stop telling us about her affairs with famous men (why did she fail to name her first husband? Huh?), and find out what the simple people *do*, to paraphrase the song from "Camelot." Having written memoirs of both her parents as well as herself, she's run out of famous relatives. It's time for her to move on.

Rating:
Summary: Talent wasted through incessant name-dropping
Review: I suppose that the author will be called "brave" by some reviewers for "speaking out" about her alcoholism, but let's face it, it's well-trod ground by now. What's most interesting, to me, about this book is how long it took Susan Cheever to realize that incessant drinking, promiscuity, submitting to the gropings of a lecherous therapist, and much more, were not in her best interests, to say the least. As someone who grew up in an alcoholic, violent family, who didn't enjoy the privileges that the Cheever name and connections brought, I think that despite her prolific writing career, the author hasn't done nearly enough to get her nose out of her navel. (At one point, I felt as though I read one more self-reference to how Susan Cheever felt "pretty," I'd scream.) Susan Cheever needs to stay out of Elaine's for awhile, stop telling us about her affairs with famous men (why did she fail to name her first husband? Huh?), and find out what the simple people *do*, to paraphrase the song from "Camelot." Having written memoirs of both her parents as well as herself, she's run out of famous relatives. It's time for her to move on.

Rating:
Summary: Shame on Simon & Schuster
Review: I would say, "Shame on Susan Cheever," but it's not her fault she can't write. It may not even be her fault that she can't recognize that she can't write. But in making this book available, her publisher has done something rotten to readers and writers alike. Guilty, too, are the folks who supplied blurbs ("this is what Fitzgerald would sound like if he was writing today"...or something like that) and the reviewers who lacked the guts to tell the truth. Jeez, even the famously grumpy Kirkus handed this book an approving review! Like many others, I give this book no stars. Please allow us to tell the truth, Amazon. Get rid of the one-star minimum.

Rating:
Summary: Why did she write this, and why was it published?
Review: If you must read Ms. Cheever's "Note" start at the first word of the FIRST paragraph and stop with the last word of the FIRST paragraph. That is by far the best and only really insightful paragraph in a thankfully thin book. Her book is more of a play by play of a childs game you would not watch unless your child was playing or you were being paid to watch. She seems content to lay blame for her lifes experiences on the environment she grew up in. Fair enough. But if that's all the more introspection you are going to offer, tell it to a freind, don't publish it. I have read the majority of John Cheever's work including his journals. I'm sure that I was looking for similar personal observations from Susan as her father offered in his works. Perhaps this was unfair. But I know that a book written by her father with such a title would have laid bare his soul and left the reader much richer for an introspective journey into a brillian yet exrealmy troubled mind and life. If Susan has done a twelve step I would suggest she revisit the fourth, fifth and eighth steps (especially regarding the families of the husbands she slept with) and then write what she has learned about herself, the human condition and the raveges of alcoholism on the mind and life of the drinker.