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The Memoir of Marilyn Monroe Reviewed By Seana Stevenson of Bookpleasures.com
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Seana Stevenson

Reviewer Seana Stevenson: Seana is a fourth year student at the University of King's College. She has been a music journalist for five years, starting in her last year of high school. She is currently involved with two music webzines reviewing and interviewing, as well as having her own Personal Blog


 
By Seana Stevenson
Published on June 14, 2011
 

Author: Sandi Gelles-Cole

Publisher: Gelles-Cole Literary Enterprises

ISBN: 978-0-9786621-3-4




Click Here To PurchaseThe Memoir of Marilyn Monroe

Author: Sandi Gelles-Cole

Publisher: Gelles-Cole Literary Enterprises

ISBN: 978-0-9786621-3-4

The Memoir of Marilyn Monroe describes the life Monroe could have lead had her suicide not been completed. The novel by Sandi Gelles-Cole takes you from New York to Rome, telling but not exactly showing the life of a sobering alcoholic/drug addict in the midst of a crisis.

The novel is a quick read, only around 170 pages, and gives you slight details of destroyed person’s loss of everything. With the whole world assuming she was dead Gelles-Cole imagines another life of a normal person escaping extraordinary circumstances. Thanks to a underground system of support Monroe survives the ‘suicide’ attempt which was really a murder attempt in disguise. With her old life hidden behind a shiny plaque in a mausoleum, Monroe was given a new chance to live a new sober life away from the spotlight.

There are incredible moments that Monroe experiences in the novel. The alternate reality includes Monroe’s reactions to the deaths of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy and Joe DiMaggio. Three people who made huge impacts on her life and with whom she was no longer allowed connections. These were moments where I had wished there was more detail. She tells of the sobering moment when the gun was fired on JFK but does not give enough details to really make you feel the moment.

The novel bounces around with certain situations and even years, showing off Gelles-Cole’s extensive research into Monroe’s lifestyle and surroundings. Monroe was not a very optimistic person, which makes her an unlikable character. While her situation was a hard one to go through, she brought a lot of it on herself and that makes the novel a little difficult. I felt almost no compassion for her, as her situation is something not many experience.

On the surface, this book is the story of someone’s death and the afterlife they are able to choose. Monroe went from lover to lover, experiencing and abandoning as she saw fit. At first she ravaged the people she met and left them raw, but by the mid to end of her life she saw people in a new light. She transitioned into someone who appreciated others. She grew stronger and found a love that she had never experienced before.

This is the story of a woman broken by the society she thought was a dream. This is her growing up story, her second chance to live her life without needing the appreciation of others. This story helps to show her what love really is and why she had been searching so hard for it. Gelles-Cole shows a different side of the icon, giving her a new face and allowing her to work out the issues Hollywood forced upon her.


Click Here To PurchaseThe Memoir of Marilyn Monroe