Oona, Living in the Shadows: A Biography of Oona O'Neill Chaplin

Rating:
Summary: In the shadows of this book as well...
Review: Being very interested in the life of cinematic genius Charlie Chaplin, and knowing what a difficult person he could be, I became interested in the one woman who stuck by him and adored him until his death, then mourned him for years after. However, this book was a disappointment and lacked a great deal of information about it's subject, Oona. Scovell also made too many assumptions, and forced her own opinion under the guise of psychology and lacked the objectivity which one expects in a well written biography.
The book opened with droning on and on about her family geneology, which bored me to tears, but I read on, expecting to soon read about Oona, which never happened. With the exception of brief information about Oona here and there, the book focused on Eugene O'Neil, and Chaplin himself (even worse, some of the "facts" written about Chaplin were false). Sadly, Oona was left out of her own biography.
This book was somewhat of a painful read and lacked professionalism from it's author.

Rating:
Summary: Very interesting subject, really bad writing
Review: The subject matter is, needless to say, very interesting. But the book reads like it is written by someone whose entire literary education centered on cheap romance novels. The author doesn't seem to have any access to any of Oona's friends or family while researching this book. Almost all of her historical data seem to have been hearsay and 2nd hand. Remarkable and unfortunate on the author's part.

Rating:
Summary: Oona?
Review: This supposed biography of Oona O'Neill Chaplin spends much of its time discussing Eugene O'Neill and Charlie Chaplin. Certainly Oona lived in the shadow of Charlie, but she doesn't emerge as a person in this biography. The book is poorly written. Too much repetition of points made, some really silly sentences of superficial statement. And no depth. Nonetheless, it's an interesting read because of the people and the lives narrated.