Gloria VanderbiltResenhas

I really wanted to like this book. The idea of an intimate correspondence between mother and son appeals to me both as a mother, and as a daughter. I often wish I knew more about my mother; that I understood more about her life and why she believes the things she does. I was looking forward to an intimate glimpse at Anderson and Gloria’s relationship, their deepest yearnings and desires, and the way they shared their innermost thoughts with one another.

Instead, what I got was a whole lot about Gloria, and very little about Anderson. At first I was interested in Gloria’s story, but her constant whining, blaming her parents for absolutely everything that went wrong in her life, and the false modesty really got to me. Seriously, how many times can I take a gorgeous woman (with pictures sprinkled throughout the book to prove it) calling herself a “fat ugly duckling” before I toss the book across the room? (The answer is - too many.)

Ultimately, I don’t think the epistolary format suited this book. The conversations seemed stilted, and Anderson often had to chime in to fill in some of the gaps in his mother’s story. Also, she was very verbose while he only got a line in here and there. And it seemed to me as though she ignored him and his comments. He’d sometimes get vulnerable and open up about something specific (often having to do with the loss of his father), and Gloria would gloss over it and go back to her poor-me tales.

Gloria herself came across as petulant, selfish, and completely unable to take responsibility for her actions even at the age of 91. Everything that went wrong in her life was always someone else’s fault: her father’s for dying, her mother’s for not loving her, her aunt’s for letting her go chaperone-free to Europe at 17, etc, etc. Ugh. So disappointing.

Lending

This memoir of Gloria Vanderbilt left me with mixed feelings. It seemed like her son was interviewing his mother, prompting her with questions. There was very little about Anderson Cooper, and not much about his mother’s custody trial when she was a child, or how made her fortune, lost it through trusting the wrong people, and made it again. It was not an in-depth revelation, although I was surprised that Vanderbilt credits LSD with helping her cope with her emotional problems. I do give her credit for doing the audio book at her advanced age of 91, and for that feat alone she deserves accolades.

I loved listening to this fascinating conversation between famous mother and equally famous son told in their own voices on audiobook.

2021 pandemic read. Emails between Gloria Vanderbilt and her son Anderson Cooper. Interesting, a lot of history, and backstory to her life and his.

Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, exchange letters and learn more about one another. A very interesting concept and fun to listen to them read the letters via audiobook. While overall the story of Gloria's childhood and life is not necessarily relatable, the idea of mother and son getting to know one another and discuss some things in writing that are tough to verbalize in conversation was really interesting.½

Not great but definitely interesting½

I greatly enjoyed the life lessons and differences in personalities that they shared with each other in this book. Gloria’s story should touch on the hearts of any young women growing up without a father figure.

The only thing I did not care for about the book was the interview style in which it was written because I found there were times when I didn’t know if it was Anderson or his mother that I was reading.

I would recommend this book if you like Anderson Cooper and wonder what its like to rub elbows with the rich and famous as a young girl.

Favorite Quote: “Being fatherless leaves a women with a taste for the fanatical… a fatherless girl can be satisfied only with the heroic, the desperate, the extreme.” –Reviewed by Suzanne½

Shrewd marketing to entitle a book by a famous Cooper linked to a previous biography of a famous Cooper. I read Lady Diana Cooper's biography years ago. Maybe the connection would not work on the generation that knows Anderson Cooper's fame and has vague knowledge of his mother's and has never heard of Lady Diana. Still, it is a remarkably readable biography and I much enjoyed the format and the story.

My sister and I exchanged voluble emails over ten plus years and I saved them in order as an ongoing conversation. Years later I reread them and wished I could publish them.

To know the follow up story to the book, that Gloria died June 17, 2019 at age 95 having lived an additional few years after the book and that Anderson had a son by a surrogate April 27, 2020. His mother knew he was going to do it but did not live to see it happen.

This was meant to be a light interlude, and it was. I of course knew who Anderson Cooper and Gloria Vanderbilt were but I had never followed either of their careers and did not know the details of their lives. The book is constructed as a conversation between son and mother that began primarily as an email exchange. It worked well for the telling of Gloria Vanderbilt's upbringing, and when the two challenged one another on an opinion or pushed for more honesty. However, this personal exchange, while revealing some of the darker parts of their lives, like Gloria's drinking, tended to focus more on how the challenge was overcome rather than describing the ugliness and pain at the time. I also felt at times that Gloria Vanderbilt came across as feeling sorry for herself, even repeatedly dwelling on the same individuals or incidents; this became a little tiresome.

I listened to the Audible in which Gloria and Anderson each read their parts. I thought my experience benefited from hearing each of them tell their stories.

I saw this on the best seller list and planned to skip it because: celebrities talking about their lives -- who cares? But a respected bookseller mentioned what a great audio book it was, so I gave it a shot. The mother-son conversation was appealing and they talked pretty frankly and openly about their lives and relationships. All I really knew about Gloria Vanderbilt was the jeans. And Anderson Cooper just from the news. So hearing about their divergent life approaches and their family dynamics was interesting. There were definitely some "EWW" moments when she talked about her sex life -- not sure who the audience was at that point. And some hard moments about her son, Carter's suicide. From her 92 years of living there was some wisdom and perspective -- mainly that the rainbow comes and goes -- and I was left thinking that it's the people who show up for others in the day to day stuff of life, without justification and self-congratulation who are the real celebrities.

I don’t typically like to read memoirs, but because I’ve been so impressed with Anderson Cooper and how he personifies such dignity, while exhibiting compassion for others through his interviews, I decided to give this book a try. As this work, consisting of emails between mother and son, provides a glimpse into the enigmatic lives of Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper, it also allows one to penetrate their thoughts as they reflect upon their somewhat tragic and traumatic life experiences. As a young girl, Gloria was constantly uprooted, and was raised by her nanny Dodo, while her mother traveled about Europe. At 10, she was the center of a custody trial in which her aunt Gertrude was embroiled in a court battle with her mother to obtain control over her trust fund. In her youth, Gloria Vanderbilt, heiress to the Vanderbilt fortune, dated interesting men, such as Roald Dahl, Frank Sinatra, and Marlon Brando, and she married four times. When Anderson was a young man, his older brother Carter tragically committed suicide at the age of 23. Earlier in Anderson’s life, his father Wyatt Cooper became ill and died when Anderson was only 10 years old. Those significant events had a profound effect on Anderson and shaped him to become the compassionate, thoughtful man he is today.
I’m giving this book five stars because I really appreciated the reflections and musing about life, as Gloria and Anderson shared some very heart-rendering reflections about personal issues and their philosophies in how they viewed their lives at that point in time. While relating to what was shared, I was completely in tears by the end of this read.

Cooper Anderson and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, together tell the story of their lives in The Rainbow Comes and Goes. Both mother and son narrate the audio book. Anderson poses questions and his mother responds, revealing stories of her fascinating but bittersweet life.

Mildly interesting exchange between Anderson Cooper of CNN fame and his mother Gloria Vanderbilt. It is a an edited email exchange between the two when Vanderbilt is 92 years old. Anderson asks some tough questions about her past, her family, her insecurities, optimism, artistic enterprises, four husbands and lovers and the suicide of his brother, Carter.
The reader learns a great deal about Gloria’s mother, who was a teenager married to an alcoholic Reginald when her daughter was born. Reginald died soon after and the scandal surrounding the upbringing of Gloria ensued. Good beach or winter storm read.

The story I½

This is worthwhile peek behind the curtain of life and legacy for two subjects: Anderson Cooper and his now deceased mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. It's a portrait of life experience, wisdom, pain, and most importantly love.

I learned from reading this that children do a service to themselves and their communities when they can reconcile with their parents. There is peace in uncovering layers of separation, betrayal and lost history.

We also get to understand Anderson Cooper from a different position.

Easy read, interesting and had me Googling a lot of new information.

With the death of Gloria Vanderbilt earlier this year, I couldn't resist the audible edition of this book that is narrated by the authors. Gloria Vanderbilt lived her life in tabloid headlines from the lurid fight for her custody when she was ten years old to her marriage to a two-bit Hollywood gangster and then to Leopold Stokowski who was over 40 years older than she was. She finally found happiness in her fourth marriage to Wyatt Cooper, (Anderson Cooper's father), only to lose him at age 50 to heart disease. She then had a third act with her line of designer jeans followed by a final tragedy when her eldest son committed suicide at age 23.

Listening to Ms. Vanderbilt describe all this in her own voice is mesmerizing. She looked at her life clear-eyed and without excuses, and her son Anderson clearly adored her. It was a pleasure to listen to the two of them examine their relationship, their joys and their fears and declare their importance to each other. Everyone should be so lucky to have this kind of honesty with a parent.

Until I saw this item on the "new books" shelf, I didn't even realize Gloria Vanderbilt was Anderson Cooper's mother. I thought this would be a great read, giving history of Gloria and Anderson's lives together. It's always nice, too, to hear the author(s) reading their own work. I was a bit disappointed, though, in how much this profiled Gloria's childhood and really didn't spend much time on her life with Anderson. I mean, they touched on it, but this was, largely, an autobiography of/by Gloria Vanderbilt, with a little Anderson Cooper thrown in. It was interesting, but it wasn't quite what I was looking for.

This was an interesting look at the life of an interesting woman, Gloria Vanderbilt. Her son, Anderson Cooper, convinced his mother to write down some of her recollections of her long life (she was 91 at the time) as responses to questions he asked her, mostly by email. From her early life Gloria was the subject of news reports and gossip and she talks quite candidly about her life. The two of them narrate this audiobook.½

Deeply thought provoking, powerfully insightful and a timeless read.

Before reading this book, I knew who Anderson Cooper was, but have never seen him on television. I read this book because my book club chose it. It was certainly an interesting read as Mr. Cooper's mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, has had a life full of dysfunctional relatives and friendships with many famous people. What I liked about the book was that it dealt with Mr. Cooper and Ms. Vanderbilt as real people, and not as the celebrities they are. It's obvious he is the reporter in the family: there is much, much more about his mother than he discloses about himself. I can't decide if the book is really an honest conversation between a mother and son, or whether they embarked on a year-long correspondence with a view to publishing the results. It does seem a bit contrived at times.½

Ugh!! Remind me not to ever again read any celebrity memoirs! This was recommended (not enthusiastically, but nevertheless recommended) as a touching conversation between a mother and son. Gloria Vanderbilt is approaching her 90's when she and her son Anderson Cooper commence a series of email conversations touching on the "big" issues of life, love and loss.

For the most part the book focuses on Gloria's life, a lot of it her really early life as "the poor little rich girl," who was the subject of a sensational custody trial in the 1930's. Her teen years and her early 20's as the lover of Howard Hughes and various Hollywood stars is also covered in detail. There is very little about Anderson's life, and some of the material his mother reveals is new to him. For the most part I found the book superficial and artificial.

I was a little creeped out by a mom discussing her sex life with her son (prude--I know). While I think Gloria means to convey that she was insecure, and is just a "regular" person, but with a very sunny outlook on life, somehow, for me, she never overcame the persona of a spoiled, entitled rich person.

I just don't need to read any more of these celebrity tell-alls in the time I have left of my reading life.

2 stars

A year long conversation between Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. I found it confusing with the family history. I appreciated the different type for mother and for son. Would like t have heard more from Cooper about his growing up.

I usually try to find something good about a book, even if, after spending time reading it, I still cannot find a lot to say .Therefore, in saying little about this book, it reinforces that I don't like it.

Usually, I am kind, but in saying that I don't find a lot of redeeming value, this also indicates how I feel.

I like autobiographies and biographies. Before joining Librarything.com, it was my genre of choice. So, in saying that this book seemed to be incredibly self centered and boring, I remain thinking that I cannot recommend this.

A seemingly happily-married woman loses her husband suddenly while celebrating their 10th wedding anniversary. While going through his belongings, she uncovers a series of letters which reveals a hidden life he was living. Along with feeling shocked and betrayed, she becomes obsessed by the woman/women who knew about her all along, for years.

Using information from the letters, she starts to unravel the mystery left behind...I think. It was a bit confusing. Some parts seemed to be dreams or just ravings from a grief-stricken woman. The ending also leaves you wondering, "What just happened here?" I listened to the audio version of this book, read by the author. Perhaps if I had a different version I could have more easily gone back and re-read parts to clear up confusion I had. Unfortunately, I didn't enjoy this enough to care.