Say Everything is a coming-of-age celebrity memoir by actress Ione Skye (4/5 stars)

Say Everything is a coming-of-age celebrity memoir by actress Ione Skye.

I borrowed the audiobook from my local library. I’m always a fan of memoirs where the author narrates the audiobook themself, and Skye does a pretty good job here. I listened to the audiobook while following along in my physical review copy, which contains a bunch of photographs as well.

Ione Sky is probably most widely known for playing Diane, the dream girl who inspires the iconic scene in Say Anything where John Cusack’s character holds a boombox over his head. It was her breakout role that made her the “it” girl if a director was looking for a teen ingenue.

In this memoir, she talks about many of her past relationships–both platonic and romantic, though the main focus is on the latter. Skye is very candid throughout as she explores her deep desire to find belonging, due in part to her father being wholly absent until her late teens (and then mostly absent thereafter). She truly takes the memoir’s title to heart.

The majority of the memoir takes place from her very young life up until her thirties. It makes sense to me for her to be a little more tight-lipped about her relationship with her husband of nearly two decades, Ben Lee. Much of her time being a mother is only spoken about in summaries, so perhaps we’ll see another memoir focused on motherhood from her sometime in the future.

One of the big things about memoirs that I like to see is a good amount of reflection on the past, and Skye does a great job here. You can tell she’s put in a lot of work in therapy, and I commend her for it. It’s so hard to do that work!

If you’re a fan of movies from the 80s and 90s, or you’re a fan of Ione in particular, you may want to check this one out!

CW: toxic relationships, drug use and abuse

I received a complimentary review copy from Gallery Books. All opinions contained herein are my own.

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