Happy Chaos

Happy Chaos by Soleil Moon Frye




Punky Brewster was one of my favorite shows when I was a kid- I even dressed as Punky one year for Halloween. Naturally, when I heard she had a book coming out I wanted to read it. I'll be frank...
there's some TMI about the delivery of her children and a couple of stories I thought didn't exactly need to be shared. Still, I enjoyed the book and there were some great stories from her childhood.


One of my favorite stories was about her being found hiding in Johnny Carson's personal office after having a problem with one of the kids of the set of Punky. There was also a time when Soleil was attending the easter egg hunt at the White House and she got seperated from her mom. She ended up being found in the Oval office eating Popeye's chicken.

Stories like that are sprinkled through the book, but it's more parenting guide than biography. She talks frankly about fears she's had and issues that she's faced while raising her two kids, Poet and Jagger. (And yes, one has been people's reactions to the kids' names!) She talks about all the typical stuff like making time to be a grown up, dealing with temper tantrums and the feeling she got the first time her six-year-old rolled her eyes at her like an annoyed teenager. She talks about people she's known and lost and what they have taught her.

One of the more touching parts of the book are the sections that deal with her father, Virgil. He was always a bit eccentric (like most of her family) but he took it to a level that eventually proved to be the beginnings of Alzheimer's Disease. She discusses the slow loss of her father mentally and the trip they took together which eventually became the documentary Sonny Boy. She wanted to be able to share that trip with him and document as much of her dad's memories and accomplishments as possible to preserve his amazing history. She also includes her fans and twitter followers in the book by adding her "questions of the day" and "sentence to finish" posts along with some of the responses. Each one directly relates to the chapter following it (and sometimes the one right before).

If you're a fan, I think you'll enjoy it. If you're an 80's/early 90's kid/teen? You'll definintely get some flashbacks to your own childhood in the proces.



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