I had no idea that Demi's early years were so tumultuous and fractured. It was certainly an unconventional and chaotic childhood, with parents that lived on the thrill of the high drama of their love-hate relationship. Constantly on the move to "escape" problems. Never settled. Jumping from one set of issues to the next. Demi found some peace with Willis, and they soon had a baby daughter named Rumer and a home in Haley, Idaho. Demi says "[Haley] became my oasis. The place where I felt more at home than I ever have anywhere else. I still do. There's something about being surrounded by the Sawtooth Mountains, where the air is clear and cool and there's almost no noise at all, that soothes me and gives me a sense of peace." Then she details all her fears, insecurities, and body image issues which she struggled all her live with. She spoke so beautifully of her three husbands, she pointed out her mistakes, their mistakes and the reasons why everything happened. She is very honest about her feelings, very fair towards both Bruce Willis and Ashton Kutcher, very loving to her daughters, and incredibly supportive of women in this cruel industry. I loved her stories about the infamous Vanity Fair cover when she posed naked and pregnant, about her roles in A few Good Men, Striptease, and GI Jane - all movies and moments where she depicted strong women who were supposed to be regarded as such, but she was trashed in the media for various stupid reasons. Demi Moore, the once highest paid actress in Hollywood.....disclosed private details and name dropping that became off-putting. Demi's memoir was articulate, unputdownable, engaging, honest, and emotional. Even though I haven't experienced most of what she's been through, I could completely relate and empathise with her feelings, and found myself nodding in agreement and murmuring under my breath, marvelling over the actress’s ability to express her thoughts so well. Demi both owned and took responsibility for her mistakes, but never placed the blame squarely on her shoulders, because as the saying goes, ‘It Takes Two to Tango’.

While some celebrities mentioned in the book felt compelled to set the record straight- on mostly minor things- and some may have felt compelled to defend themselves- but ultimately took the high road- I thought Demi did a good job in telling her life story. She was hard on some people, sometimes understandably, sometimes not, but she was also forgiving. She didn’t sugarcoat her foibles and owned her own s**t. I am left with the impression she is trying to be the best version of herself she can be, and at the end of the day, isn't that the best any of us can do? It's truly amazing she survived such a hardscrabble life with a volatile mother and found her way to Hollywood. Her young marriage makes sense and I wonder what would have happened to her if she hadn't been successful on General Hospital. Seriously, this film was literally ALWAYS on cable, and for some reason (I think it was partly its theme song, which I still stan today), I couldn’t ever NOT watch it, even though I had the most tenuous grasp of its plot points.Famed American actress Demi Moore at last tells her own story in a surprisingly intimate and emotionally charged memoir. Naturally, I was aware she was controversial at times, that she had married and divorced Bruce Willis, and then married Ashton Kutcher- a relationship that came under a great deal of scrutiny in the tabloids. In other words, I knew the simple basics and that's about it. I came away from the book with a sense of what a difficult life Demi Moore has lived and I hope she'll find that sense of home and belonging that she's always searched for.

While she goes into warts-and-all descriptions of her young life, she is more circumspect in describing her marriage to Bruce Willis and Ashton Kushner. Itzkoff, Dave (September 12, 2019). "Demi Moore Lets Her Guard Down". The New York Times . Retrieved October 6, 2019. Demi is philosophical about her failed relationships, and doesn't badmouth any of the men she dated or married. To recover from her third divorce, Demi worked with a therapist and went to rehab. In time, she became stronger and came to understand what went wrong. She observes, "I took care of everyone but myself. I had to figure out what I needed and wanted." This is something she carried well into adulthood. Always the need to be someone else, to put on a "face" for what she expected other people wanted to see. It's a tough habit to undo. To truly be free to be yourself.

I admired the honesty throughout this book as Demi shared her story. At times her truth was brutal. The weight, sobriety, trust, promiscuity issues. Her extremely difficult and upsetting relationship with her mother, which only healed after she passed. Demi's thoughts on spirituality and the Universe as she started to sober up were insightful. I get it. The need to hand things over to a greater power. I’ve never been a fan of movie, or TV stars, in the same way I am with musicians or authors. I liked many of the movies Demi starred in- Ghost being my very favorite of all her roles. I think she is a good actress, but I wouldn’t call myself a fan, necessarily. Survivor is a good word to describe Demi. She had a pretty messed up childhood, has been thru 3 divorces, has experienced both box office successes and disappointments, has had periods of estrangement from different family members, and battled addiction. And yet, she's still standing. She seems to be in a pretty good place right now and I would imagine writing this memoir proved to be a cathartic experience. First of all, since I could not have been more than 12 myself, I thought everyone in the film was easily about fifty years old. (I know, I know, foolish youth...karma’s a bitch, though, because here I sit in 2020, exponentially, realistically older, while half the original cast somehow looks the same age as, or even younger than, they did then.)

sounds like the perfect life. But as I would soon find out, if you carry a well of shame and unresolved trauma inside of you, no amount of money, no measure of success or celebrity, can fill it." While Demi was still a young teenager, however, she was driven to self-destructive behavior, like partying, hanging out with older boys, and giving in to their sexual demands. Thus Demi succumbed when her mother pimped her out to a middle-aged restaurateur named Val Doumas. Val was waiting inside the apartment when 15-year-old Demi got home from school - having received a key from Ginny - and just took it for granted the teenager would have sex with him. For me Demi ends the book on a positive note. There is still so much joy to look forward to. There is a sense of serenity. I wish her well.I think this is one of my favorite memoirs and I’m glad I made the choice to listen to the audiobook. I loved that it was narrated by Demi. The memoir begins with stories from Moore's tough upbringing, including her mother's first attempted suicide and the time Moore was raped at the age of 15. Moore's parents' battled with alcoholism. Moore recalled using her fingers to dig pills out of her mother's mouth, which was just the first of several suicide attempts her mother made before she died in 1998. Moore called this event as a life-changing moment that ended her childhood. She learned that the man she grew up calling dad, Danny Guynes (who later died by suicide), was not her biological father. [16] Things only got worse when Demi started using Vicodin, and the actress made up her mind to detox all by herself. She remembers, "It's one of the hardest things I ever had to do in my life. Going off opiates is agony. It's unimaginably excruciating. You can't sleep because your body hurts too much. It's like the worst flu you ever had times a hundred."

Parades: Dreams.... And Shine Brighter! • Move It! Shake It! Dance and Play It! Street Party • Pixar Play Parade Moore had originally planned her memoirs to coincide with her 50th birthday in 2012. [7] She centered the memoir around "a fundamental question, which is, 'How did I get here?' Coming from where I've come from, how did I get here?" she told People magazine. [8] She said that writing the memoir was a necessary part of a longer process of rediscovering herself. "I had to figure out why to do this, because my own success didn't drive me," Moore said. [9] The book was co-written by journalist Ariel Levy. [10] Publication and promotion [ edit ] The Epilogue is particularly touching. I get the sense that Demi is finally in a comfortable space. Both in her body and in her place in the world. Just as the book opens with her questioning her life, the ending has her pondering and accepting it. The good, the bad, the highs and lows. The people she has loved and the people she is yet to love.Sollosi, Mary (October 10, 2019). "Celebrities react to Demi Moore's revealing memoir Inside Out". Entertainment Weekly . Retrieved October 25, 2019. We get to learn about her difficult childhood and teenage years, and how her complicated relationship with her mother shaped Demi into the insecure woman that learned from a very young age to hide her troubles behind a dazzling smile. Her difficult early years also taught her independence and strong, and professional work ethic. One thing is for sure, every single accomplishment in her life, Demi has earned. Demi writes a good deal about her relationship with Ashton: the early euphoria; their decision to wed; a miscarriage when Demi was almost six months pregnant; their attempts to conceive again, including fertility treatments and IVF; incorporating threesomes into their sex life; and their eventual divorce. There is a step in Twelve Step recovery — the 4th step — that asks that we take a "searching and fearless moral inventory," of ourselves. Demi Moore got sober in the mid-1980s, but never spoke very publicly about it. There were hints, always, in interviews she gave. She told one reporter she was currently reading, The Sermon on the Mount, a book that every 12-step recovery person would know. It was a foundational book by Emmett Fox and widely read by the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous. In the 80s, 12-step recovery became widespread. Those of us in recovery knew of the many celebrities who were sober, including Demi.