Andrew Rannells’ memoir walks you through his young life starting out in the Omaha theater scene, up through his move to New York for college, his subsequent drop out and struggle with finding himself and his place in show business and all of the lessons he learned along the way. It stops just short of his rise as a Broadway star in his most known role of Elder Price in Book of Mormon.
You go through a few heartbreaks, and then you realize that maybe it’s better to just expect less and be surprised if it actually goes your way. The problem with this method is that it numbs you. The losses and the wins start to bleed together in your mind. You stop feeling anything because everything seems so fragile. You seem so fragile.
As I continue to post reviews, you will find my life is full of rabbit holes. I throw myself into a topic and down I go, surfacing only when I have had my fill. And some of these rabbit holes have smaller tangential rabbit holes. That is how Andrew Rannells ended up on my radar, not once but twice. It was sort of a “Seven degrees of Kevin Bacon” situation, only it was “Seven degrees of Matt Bomer”. I believe I mention in a previous review that I was a fan of White Collar. That sparked my interest in the dashing Mr. Bomer, which led me to his guest spot on “The New Normal”, a brief but charming show about a gay couple trying to have a baby, where Andrew Rannells played the lead. Fast-forward a handful of years (maybe two handfuls) and The Boys in the Band opened on Broadway, featuring BOTH Matt Bomer and Andrew Rannells and suddenly they are both back on my radar. I made my maiden voyage to the Big Apple, followed the entire cast on the social media, and found myself embroiled in the on and offstage romance of Andrew and cast mate Tuc Watkins (A St. Louis native, like me!) and THAT lead me to an interview where Andrew was discussing this book. Did you follow all that?
Now don’t get me wrong, I have a penchant for celebrity memoirs. Especially the ones where I can go “look, they struggle just like me!” However, this one was not my favorite. To be honest, in anything I’ve ever seen Andrew in, he always seemed arrogant and overly confident. I like to read these books to find the “human” side of celebrities and this just didn’t land for me. While I found a couple good quotes, I did not find his story relatable. It was interesting to see where he came from and the obstacles he overcame, but ultimately the book landed in my “average reads” pile.
