I've seen a lot of her films and loved them, I just didn't realize that artist names. Sorry bad memory when it comes to names of actors and singers.

What I like about this memoir is the way Sally told it and how she unapologetically tell her back story. As someone who was a victim of domestic violence this story triggered some sore spot but that didn't stop me from loving this book. I won't be rereading it though. ( )

I have always liked Sally Field and enjoyed listening to her life story! ( )

Trigger warning for the book: sexual and emotional child abuse

I've always loved Sally Field. As great of a writer as she is an actor, her memoir uncovers her as a complex character much like the ones she seeks out to understand and portray. I don't want to peg her story as one thread in a vast fabric, but it's certainly a timely one that fits into the current #MeToo moment. From her stepfather to her boyfriends and husbands and directors, Field has experienced the worst of men. I wanted to root for her, to stand up for her, to push her into shouting and leaving. I hope now after writing her story she finds peace.

The memoir closely follows her relationship to her mother, and ends when her mother passes away of cancer. This ending felt abrupt for me, and although I don't want Field to feel like she has to discuss every single film she's made, she did skim over some important ones (Forrest Gump, Steel Magnolias). Maybe I feel this way because those are my favorites and my namesake. ( )

Can't really say I enjoyed it. Field shares some raw moments from her life, but it felt a little too dramatic for my taste. I liked her characters she played better than the persona she projects in her book. ( )

In Pieces is a surprisingly introspective book, less a movie-star biography than the story of one troubled woman’s journey toward conquering inner demons that seldom showed on screen.

Throughout most of her life, Field sought acceptance and fought feelings that she wouldn’t be loved if she wasn’t good enough – though she struggled to define what “good enough” was, and how to get there. She found one kind of “good enough” in acting, in the capacity to lose herself in a character – or rather, to develop a character to inhabit. After beginning her career in lightweight television sitcoms, Field grew more serious about understanding and developing her craft, and spent years in various actors’ studio groups, eventually breaking away from the bubbly ingénue image with dramatic blockbusters like Sybil and Norma Rae.

Along the way, she acquired and shed several husbands, gave birth to three children whom she reared mostly alone, with the help of her mother, and struggled always to come to terms with a childhood trauma that would haunt her throughout her adult life.

If you’re looking for “and then I made this movie” or insider stories of the industry, or a list of Field’s lovers, you won’t find them here. And while she does discuss her well-publicized relationship with actor Burt Reynolds, it’s more as a journey of growth and self-discovery than it is a kiss-and-tell.

If some of the episodes she describes are difficult to read, if the reader occasionally wants to smack Field upside the head for some of the decisions she made, it’s all in the service of honesty and self-discovery. This one is worth the time. ( )