Talking As Fast As I Can

Cover image from Goodreads:

In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”).

In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”).

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.

There was pretty much no way that I would not love this book. Gilmore Girls is one of my favourite TV shows – I’ve watched it since the beginning! I was almost the same age as Rory Gilmore and so I was super invested in the show; I could identify with aspects of Rory’s life, and wanted to be like her in a lot of ways.

I also loved Lorelai Gilmore, played by Lauren Graham. She was funny, sassy, smart, and complicated. So when this book was announced, I pre-ordered it immediately!

I love Lauren Graham’s writing. She is so lively and funny, and I could really hear her voice as I read. It was such a fun reading experience. I really liked reading about her start as an actor, but let’s face it, I 100% wanted to read this book for the Gilmore Girls-related content! I was so overjoyed to read about her memories of the show, from filming and early upfronts to her season-by-season viewing of the show in preparation for working on this book.

And of course I enjoyed reading about the filming of the revival episodes! And the way she kept talking about the ending of the new episodes (and those last four words) as a cliffhanger really makes me hope there’s a plan for more episodes in the future!

As much as I loved this book, it felt a bit slight. I would have liked more book, I suppose. At 224 pages, it seemed somewhat on the small side.

Overall, I loved Talking As Fast As I Can, as I knew I would! I am looking forward to more books from Lauren Graham – fiction or non-fiction – in the future! Definitely recommended!