Book Review Monday: Julie Andrews Autobiography, Home, Review by Asheville, NC Wedding and Portrait Photographer

I want to start doing some new series of posts on here, but since I get bored easily and have several different strong interests I thought I would make Mondays "Music Mondays and Book Review Mondays." Two of my great loves are music and reading!! 

I also love thrift shopping and recently while at Goodwill with my mom, I picked up a brand new copy of Julie Andrews autobiography "Home."  (enjoy the fancy photo below I took of the book one day when I was reading and enjoying my favorite snack of spicy peanuts :)

I was born and raised on "The Sound of Music," and "Mary Poppins!" At the age of six when most girls were requesting to watch princess movies and cartoons, I would sit and watch as Julie Andrews enchantedly danced her way across the screen and sang her way into my heart! I typically don't read a lot of autobiographies, I usually am more into historical fiction novels, but I knew an autobiography by my childhood hero wouldn't disappoint! 

Home is a recounting of Julie Andrews earlier years! I was amazed to find out that she had quite the rough childhood. Her parents divorced when she and her younger brother were at a young age and she was passed back and forth between the two of them throughout her childhood, though she spent the vast majority of her time with her mother and alcoholic, abusive stepfather. Julie expressed an interest in music and singing from a young age and was essentially raised in show business, by her show business momager...picture "Dance Moms," except with the backdrop of post World War Two England as the setting and minus some of the mom fights (though Julie's mother and stepfather had their fair share of fights). 

She was classically trained by Madame Stiles-Allen and though she didn't choose a career in opera as her teacher wished for her too, I think it was her firm foundation in the classics that helped her bring such force and vivacity to characters such as Eliza Doolittle, Maria von Trapp, and Mary Poppins. 

In Home, Julie, discusses at length starring in some of her first Broadway plays and I most especially enjoyed where she talked about acting in the modern adaption of Pygmalion (aka My Fair Lady) with the dynamo actor, Rex Harrison. The book concludes right before Julie Andrews began work on "Mary Poppins," and the only thing I would've changed about the book was possibly just having it include a little more on her work on Mary Poppins or even having it go all the way to the point of her being cast as Maria Von Trapp. 

I loved reading Home because it helped me to see that even with the rough upbringing she had, Julie Andrews charming personality and resilience still managed to shine through in the hard situations she was put in.  If you were already a Julie Andrews fan before reading this book, you will love her even more after reading Home! She is every bit as talented, hardworking, funny, endearing, and loveable as you would imagine her to be!