Someday, Someday, Maybe by Lauren Graham
Someday, Someday, Maybe, a novel by actress Lauren Graham, is about a young aspiring actress in 1995 New York. I’ll admit that whenever I see that an actress (or other celebrity) has written a book, I’m immediately wary, so let me first say upfront that I was pleasantly surprised by the quality of this novel. The writing was decent, the characters felt very real, and the plot, if a little predictable at times, all held together. It took me a little while to warm up to the book, partially because it just wasn’t the type of thing I was in the mood to read (but there’s a waiting list at the library, so I had to take it when I could), and I spent a fair amount of time exasperated with main character Franny – but then, what early twenty-something trying to find herself doesn’t exasperate the people around her? By the end, though, I genuinely cared about Franny and her friends, partially because they seemed to actually learn and grow through the course of the novel.
Because the book is about an actress, I’m sure there’s speculation about which anecdotes were actually drawn from Graham’s life or the lives of her friends; while I tried not to assume anything about the veracity of specific characters or incidents, Graham’s experience in the field shone through in the way she portrayed auditions, agency meetings, and more. And I found myself begrudgingly charmed – and sometimes thinking “hey, that’s useful” – by some of the aphorisms and life lessons that Franny learned and tried to adopt in her quest for self-improvement.
