Rating:  Summary: Full Of Suprises Like "Memento" Review: "My Fractured Life" by Rikki Lee Travolta is an awe inspiring literary experience to put it lightly. There is a gritty authenticity that resonates from the way the stories are voiced. They are far more than just words on a page. The most awe-inspiring thing is the full circle surprises. Over and over Travolta lulls us into thinking he is wandering away from loose ends, then he comes back to them with a flourish for shocking revelations. The chapter "Nailing Neve Campbell" was exactly like that. My jaw dropped when I read the revelations. This is a book that you have to read cover to cover and it does draw you right in right away. I read the book in just a few nights. I'm reading it a second time and am already discovering things I overlooked the first time. I have to compare it to "The Usual Suspects" and "Memento".
Rating:  Summary: Full Of Suprises Like "Memento" Review: "My Fractured Life" by Rikki Lee Travolta is an awe inspiring literary experience to put it lightly. There is a gritty authenticity that resonates from the way the stories are voiced. They are far more than just words on a page. The most awe-inspiring thing is the full circle surprises. Over and over Travolta lulls us into thinking he is wandering away from loose ends, then he comes back to them with a flourish for shocking revelations. The chapter "Nailing Neve Campbell" was exactly like that. My jaw dropped when I read the revelations. This is a book that you have to read cover to cover and it does draw you right in right away. I read the book in just a few nights. I'm reading it a second time and am already discovering things I overlooked the first time. I have to compare it to "The Usual Suspects" and "Memento".
Rating:  Summary: Of Heroes and Demons Review: A touching story about a wounded soul in a world of deception and false beauty. Uniquely original. A human adventure with the intensity of THE DA VINCI CODE, LOVELY BONES, and FATHER JOE. A story all will enjoy.
Rating:  Summary: Coming of Age Review: Creating a manic episode on alive on paper, author Rikki Lee Travolta proves himself an ingenious fountain of creativity in his coming of age novel My Fractured Life. Equally riddled with lusty dramatic angst and cavalier sarcastic humor, the book is sweetly intoxicating with cult classic bravado and bestseller panache. Providing a safe harbor for the forgotten wit and stylistic flourishes of merry prankster Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the self-poisoning tongue of mournful sad prince John Steinbeck (East of Eden), Travolta brings the understated minimalist grandeur of internalized euphoria, fear, humor, rage, and pleasure into a modern world. His voice is comfortingly familiar and erotically original within the same evocations. The author introduces us to the friendship of two contrasting young people desperate to find acceptance in the unforgiving world of fashion and Hollywood glamour. In sad irony we are coaxed to care for one of the two, only to witness their tragic, self-inflicted demise. The true story then unravels, the story of a good person as told through the eyes of the friend who failed to save them. My Fractured Life is to literature what Jim Morrison was to music. Travolta ranks in the same elite as contemporaries John Grisham (Bleachers), Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), Dean Koontz (Intensity). Janet Fitch (White Oleander), the late John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces), and Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code).
Rating:  Summary: Coming of Age Review: Creating a manic episode on alive on paper, author Rikki Lee Travolta proves himself an ingenious fountain of creativity in his coming of age novel My Fractured Life. Equally riddled with lusty dramatic angst and cavalier sarcastic humor, the book is sweetly intoxicating with cult classic bravado and bestseller panache. Providing a safe harbor for the forgotten wit and stylistic flourishes of merry prankster Ken Kesey (One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) and the self-poisoning tongue of mournful sad prince John Steinbeck (East of Eden), Travolta brings the understated minimalist grandeur of internalized euphoria, fear, humor, rage, and pleasure into a modern world. His voice is comfortingly familiar and erotically original within the same evocations. The author introduces us to the friendship of two contrasting young people desperate to find acceptance in the unforgiving world of fashion and Hollywood glamour. In sad irony we are coaxed to care for one of the two, only to witness their tragic, self-inflicted demise. The true story then unravels, the story of a good person as told through the eyes of the friend who failed to save them. My Fractured Life is to literature what Jim Morrison was to music. Travolta ranks in the same elite as contemporaries John Grisham (Bleachers), Chuck Palahniuk (Fight Club), Dean Koontz (Intensity). Janet Fitch (White Oleander), the late John Kennedy Toole (A Confederacy of Dunces), and Dan Brown (Da Vinci Code).
Rating:  Summary: Darn Fun Review: Darn this was fun to read. Granted it gets a bit gloomy here and there. All in all and all together it was a fun glimpse that the other half ain't necessarily all that much better than things on this side of the fence.
Rating:  Summary: I Enjoyed It! Review: I do not understand the notoriety of this book. My initial impression after 20 pages: here is a truly self-absorbed neurotic. That impression solidified after 100 pages. Repeatedly, the "writer" puts himself down , then self-exults in the same paragraph. He is clueless, but imagines his boring blather is ironic and honest. Schlock. I give this book 1-star because zero stars is not an option.
Rating:  Summary: cautionary and delusional tale Review: I got this book for research purposes because of references made by other reviewers to "hollywood stories". After finishing the book I just feel sad for the author because he clearly gets that he's not the "big celebrity" he so often refers to himself as, nor does he begin to circulate in the arena of celebrity in hollywood. His "stories" are self aggrandising though couched in self depracation. I can find no reference to the "hit" television series that made him a "big star" on any of the enterainment databases and he never mentions what network originally aired the show beyond an unamed cable network airing reruns. He trades on the tragedy of his friend "Jesse" who kills himself after throwing in the towel on an acting career that is sabotaged by the powerful celebrity family of his famous father who would never claim his illegitimate son. He candidly admits that his friend is a raging alcoholic but the real reason the guy didn't make it is the machiavellian machinations of some unamed hollywood movie star's family? The only reference to the author on any entertainment database is as an uncredited body double in the film EdTV. This poor guy "made it" in his own mind only and his book is the boring retelling of that delusion. I would say that this is an excellent book to pass along to a marginally talented high school theatre student living in the midwest as a cautionary tale EXCEPT that they might think that they too can be a big star like Rikki Lee Travolta and miss the point that he's just another wannabe with substance abuse issues and a big fantasy life.
Rating:  Summary: Essential Reading Review: The most original book since THE DA VINCI CODE. I loved every page. The plot twists are original and unique. The characters are intoxicating. An essential book club read.
Rating:  Summary: Emotionally Turbulent Story of Drowning in Success Review: The unwanted offspring of Hollywood, Jesse Newman and Rikki Lee Travolta battle through the turmoil of emotional childhood abuse. In a sorrowful quest for the emotional acceptance that eludes them from their distant and abusive families, as young men they turn to careers themselves in Hollywood in hopes that fame will provide a substitute for love. Newman is blessed with the skills to succeed as an actor. Travolta is a guy who looks good with his shirt off. Through the luck of sleeping with the right agent, Travolta is the one who ends up with the successful career in Hollywood while his more talented but less lucky best friend Newman falls off the figurative face earth facing dejection after dejection as an actor and in his personal life. While one man's star rises and the other's falls, they both fall into the terrible web of alcohol and drug addiction, ultimately destroying one if not both. In this exploration of the sordid side of the entertainment world, Travolta writes with great passion and an authentic if self-deprecating voice. His style reflects a number of influences, most obvious among them Tennessee Williams and Brett Easton Ellis. However there is also an entertaining almost Dave Barry-like way of editorializing on the absurdity of fame and pop culture while at the same time recounting the trauma of drowning in it. An excellent book, although not one to brighten your day.
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