While remodeling her house, Fisher found the journals she'd kept as a 19-year-old when she was playing Princess Leia in the first Star Wars movie, now retitled Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope. As the reproduced pages show, she doesn't have much to say about wookies or robots. The diary, in fact, is a catalog, in poetry and prose, of her affair with the married, thirtysomething Harrison Ford. Those original writings range from thoughtful and heartfelt to cringe-worthy, about what you'd expect from a teenager who knows something about how to wield a pen. Perhaps when she discovered the pages, Fisher's first thought wasn't let's turn these into a book, but as she makes clear detailing why she signs autographs at Comic-Cons, which she depressingly calls her form of lap dancing she needs money. Yet, this is also clearly a chance to understand a formative part of her life, which she attempts to do with her signature ironic humor and a sad honesty. The facts are simple. Ford and Fisher only met on weekends, they didn't talk on set, and they didn't converse much even when together. And, should readers be wondering about the sex, she won't discuss that. What the laconic Ford meant to her and her feelings about herself remain complicated. Also of interest are the musings of the latter-day Fisher, who it can be said, saw her life set in concrete by the role of Princess Leia. In some ways, this compact book makes a mountain out of a mole hill. But what a mole hill.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2016 Booklist

Fisher finally set out to publish a collection of essays related specifically to her role as Princess Leah in the blockbuster Star Wars movie franchise and a brief affair with her older-and married-co-star Harrison Ford during the shooting of the first film. The juxtaposition between Fisher's narration of her contemporary writing with the voice of her daughter, actress Lourd, reading diary portions written four decades earlier makes for telling contrast: Fisher, with her smoky, husky voice, sounds like a tough-as-nails seasoned survivor who doesn't take her past romances and heartaches seriously and wishes her own fans would lighten up about their assumptions and speculations. Lourd performs the emotional long-ago passages with a palpable air of youthful self-consciousness. Both handle the duties at hand with poise and skill, leaving listeners to appreciate the way that time can shape one's perspective quite dramatically. A Blue Rider hardcover. (Nov.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Fisher's recent death and the continued churning of the "Star Wars" movie machine will undoubtedly renew interest in the woman who is once and forever Princess Leia. Here, Fisher details her experiences in the first Star Wars movie and the celebrity status that dogged her for more than 40 years. The middle section features journal entries and poetry penned by her 19-year-old self and captures the melodrama and painful self-doubt that often plagues those on the cusp of adulthood. Bookending these excerpts are Fisher's commentary on what her starring role in the franchise meant. She speaks wryly of her childhood and her complicated relationships with family and fame, and with her famous, self-deprecating humor, she chronicles her time on the Star Wars set, her affair with Harrison Ford, and the ways in which playing Leia shaped her life. VERDICT While Fisher presents a lively reading of her own work, at times listeners might find themselves wondering when the story will end. Recommended primarily for avid Princess Leia fans and those wishing for one more Fisher performance.-Samantha Facciolo, -Wilmington, DE © Copyright 2017. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

after it was announced last year that Carrie Fisher was going to publish the diaries she kept while playing Princess Leia during the filming of "Star Wars" in 1976, some corners of the fandom blogosphere went full-tilt tizzy in anticipation. Fisher, after all, had already proved herself as an entertaining scribe with four novels, a one-woman Broadway show, her Twitter feed and two previous memoirs recounting her family history, career, addictions and mental-health issues. "The Princess Diarist" is her latest memoir. One wonders, though, after 40 years of the "Star Wars" franchise - with its seven films (Fisher in four of them so far), countless documentaries, talk-show appearances, conventions and the internet's obsessive cataloging - what's left to tell? Could there really be any more justremembered anecdotes, maybe quaffing tequila shooters on set with Darth Vader? Well, as it turns out, Carrie Fisher does have some new information to share with her fans. But as they say online, if you'd rather find out yourself: SPOILER ALERT! Her big reveal? She and Harrison Ford (who was married at the time) had a secret love affair during the shoot, or as she refers to it, "a very long one-night stand." She hasn't talked about it publicly until now and states that it's only her side of the story, but tells it two ways: from her current viewpoint as a 60-year-old looking back and as a 19-year-old writing in her journal as it happened. (Whether anybody cares about the dalliance four decades later is debatable, but it does give a new perspective on their characters' relationship in the sequels.) The titular diaries take up about 70 pages of the book. If you've ever been a teenage girl with a paper-based diary (or sneaked into that teenage girl's room to read that diary), the contents will be familiar: Deep thoughts about love, life and happiness, occasional rants, wobbly attempts at poetry and little spurts of personal insight are all splattered across the pages. It may not be great writing, but it's an empathy tractor beam. Many entries show Fisher trying to process her feelings over the affair. Some even display a degree of self-awareness about her early writing efforts, which she describes as "adolescent jargon peppered with random selections from a fairly gaudy vocabulary." Still, it feels invasive to be reading the material, even with her permission. The present-day reflections wrapped around either side of the diary section are livelier and echo the style of her previous memoirs. Long riffs on her extremely devoted fans - she says she's "moved by them" - are mixed in with slicing observations on Hollywood dysfunction and sexism (yes, a certain gold bikini comes up). One chapter recalls the creation of Princess Leia's infamous dual-bun hairstyle and makeup choices: "And who wears that much lip gloss into battle? Me, or Leia, of course." in trying to establish separation from this movie character that's been fused to her for two-thirds of her existence, Fisher offers a thoughtful, sardonic meditation on the price of fame, cost-of-living adjustments included. "Perpetual celebrity - the kind where any mention of you will interest a significant percentage of the public until the day you die, even if that day comes decades after your last real contribution to the culture - is exceedingly rare, reserved for the likes of Muhammad Ali," she writes. "The Princess Diarist" may not be the jolly trip down memory lane some fans are looking for. But like her 19-year-old self, Carrie Fisher doesn't hold back on how she feels about life inside the "Star Wars" industrial complex - and that's ultimately more interesting than another story about filming the Death Star trash-compactor scene. ? J. D. BIERSDORFER is the production editor at the Book Review.