One thought on “Boys in the Trees: A Memoir”

1. When I heard that Carly Simon had written a memoir, I waited with Anticipation until my copy came in at the library The Hollywood Reporter called this book one of the best memoirs of the year, and People Magazine named this book one of the Top 10 books of 2015 in any category , so I expected it would be an engaging read after all, That s the Way I I ve Always Heard it Should Be Unfortunately, this book didn t quite live up to expectations.Simon begins and proceeds for far too many chapters descr [...]

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2. I listened to the audiobook and was completely entranced by Carly Simon s voice no surprise but even amazed at her gifted storytelling skills She holds nothing back in her beautiful and poignant memoir of her childhood through the early 80 s It was pieced together based on her personal diaries with seemingly amazing accuracy Her stories are told from the heart, revealing intimate details and giving new meaning to her songs I was especially fascinated by her childhood home and family life storie [...]

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3. 3.5 Carly Simon is 70 years old now hard to believe and she s got some stories to tell.Based on a friends suggestion I tried the audio version which Carly narrates Her voice and cadence is perfect for unveiling her personal tales, after all, nobody does it better than the author herself There are also layers of music in the background over particular sections This was a really nice touch, though in some parts it was a bit too loud and competed with her soft spoken voice I downloaded the audioboo [...]

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4. If you were a child of the Seventies, the music of Carly Simon was part of the soundtrack of your life And since she wrote or co wrote most of her own music, her albums were barometers of her happiness or sadness, her ups and downs from adolescent struggles to adult loves Fans read probably too much into the lyrics of her songs and those of her then husband James Taylor So, from a fan s perspective, Simon s new memoir, Boys in the Trees is the perfect complement to her songs with an intimate nar [...]

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5. I picked up this book because I enjoyed James Taylor s music back in the 60s and 70s Carly Simon was married to James Taylor from 1972 to 1983 I also enjoyed Carly s singing The one I remember best is of course You re So Vain I thought this would be a trip down memory lane It was that a bit, but it is much of a look at Carly s own personal experiences her stuttering, her parents difficult marriage, the early death of her father who was the co founder of the publishing house Simon and Schuster a [...]

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6. A nod of gratitude to my GR friend, Jennifer, who in her great review said to skip I skimmed the first 40% to get right to the good stuff Rightly so, as I wasn t the least bit interested in Simon s mommy and daddy episodes, but greatly interested in the evolution of her music and I am feeling very sappy her love life I knew about Warren Beatty and Mick Jagger, but Jack Nicholson, Cat Stephens, and Kris Kristofferson Good stuff I think by doing the audio book, I missed out on some of her shared p [...]

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7. Perhaps you needed to be a bigger fan, or most so motivated by who slept with whom celebrity folklore to better appreciate this work For me, this was a 400 page People magazine, lacking the skill or prose that would otherwise hold a reader s interest who isn t rubbernecking for gossip.

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8. Yes, I have always been a fand if you are a fan of also James Taylorsad this If you love music, pop culture, literature, and enjoy reading about life in NYC, in the 60s and 70s, this book would certainly trip your trigger Carly s writing style is free and easy, kinda like her songs.d I learned things about her that I did not know.I remember my brother once told me that he hated her music,and yet, if a song was on the radio, that he knew all the words, because I played the piss outta my Carly Sim [...]

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9. I am a big fan of musician memoirs but not of this book The writing is self conscious, self aggrandizing, and overworked At times I thought I was reading poetry not prose song writer occupational hazard perhaps The book is also guilty of gratuitous name dropping and cringe worthy details of her sexual exploits.The second half of the book improves as she chronicles her rise to fame and her storied relationship with James Taylor Her love for him, their children, and the joys of song writing are vi [...]

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10. I ve been a Carly Simon fan since 1971 when she released her first hit, That s the Way I Always Heard It Should Be, so I waited for this memoir with great Anticipation, but turns out the subtitle could have been You re So Vague This was both fascinating and exasperating as Carly went into too much detail in some areas and not enough in others, and even though she imparted some very intimate and many times unneeded aspects about her life and experiences, especially about her sexual development , [...]

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11. Amazing story of Carly s childhood and life of an originally shy girl shadowed by her older sisters but overcame some of her fears and to discover music as a way to hide her stutter and find her talent I was a big fan of Carly Simon, and of course James Taylor, during the 1970s James drug use was no secret during his years on top of fame mountain but during that time it wasn t unusual Carly hid her anxiety and depression very well This book is a testament to her stamina as a writer, performer, w [...]

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12. Well, it s like an autobiography up to age 35 than what is consistently called memoir in this modern age But regardless, Carly IS honest What she isn t is something else altogether Because IMHO, it s rather hard to give her praise or other nice strokes if this book reflects her core Ok, three great qualities maybe 1 would be her honesty 2 would be the shelf holding all her musical talents in one basket composition performance 3 would be her possible good intent or capacity for trust Um, I m not [...]

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13. I was looking forward to learning about Carly Simon s life, her processes as a singer and songwriter, and her journey to fame and maturity despite well publicized anxieties This memoir was unsatisfying While I wanted to learn about Simon s personal life as it related to her music and everything does , the book was too much about her personal life there was too much detail and too much of the sensational Simon was so vulnerable, and so much looking for love and approval, much of the time in the w [...]

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14. I grew up in the 70 s and was a big fan of Carly Simon, had all her albums This book was like a walk down memory lane I found myself playing each song she talked about and I didn t want it to end, because while I was reading Boys in the Trees and listening to all the great songs I was a teenager again at least for a little while One of my all time favorite songs is That s The Way I Always Heard It Should Be just brilliant

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15. I guess I have discovered something about myself after reading this book Memoirs are not for me I have enough to worry about in my own life and do not really have the energy to fret about anyone else s I found this book to be kind of boring and upsetting at the same time It seems that everyone took advantage of Carly Simon and she was kind of a doormat for James Taylor I do not care that his emotional health was fragilehe treated her like dirt and she just kept coming back for Was it love or st [...]

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16. 2.5Too much childhood, too little music Much better to accept that the creative process is mysterious and just listen to the songs I should admit that this is not all the fault of the author I often wind up being unsatisfied by these musical memoirs They invariably suffer from either extensive TMI and wanton name dropping or they are cagey and coy about what we already know This memoir is all those things Listen to these, instead Legend in Your Own Timeyoutu ofkxlrr_G4I You Belong to Meyoutu ukk [...]

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17. Carly Simon tells the story of her childhood, the early stages of her career, her single life and her marriage and its disintegration In each, she openly bares very private parts of herself.The family story was a page turner for me You could feel the 1950 s formality, its music and the elegance of the Simon household The images and words describing her aloneness in the family circle and the slow decline of her father are literature and pervade and replay as they weave into future relationships S [...]

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18. Most celebrity memoirs are playing keep away with the truth, and are uninteresting as a result In this one, Carly Simon is willing to truly reveal herself Fascinating, truly impressive Up there with Andre Agassi s Open as one of the very best celebrity autobiographies ever.

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19. This was an honest memoir by Carly Simon She was born in New York and grew up in New York City her father was The Simon in Simon and Schuster publishing company Her father help start up the company She grew up meeting many famous authors and people in music and show business Her father suffered from mental illness and spent some time hospitalized She was one of four children growing up with two older sisters and one younger brother Her father died when she was fifteen years old.Carly went to col [...]

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20. Oh,ah, and oh well, all those boys in Carly s tangled tresses of life There is hand touching, hand holding, rings on fingers, clenched hands as symbols through the first two thirds of this memoir Then as we hear about the end of her marriage to James Taylor, this brings forth hand wringing and even some longing.I ve always been a fan of her music since 1972 with her haunting LP, No Secrets I virtually wore out a cassette tape of this hit filled album in my top down MGB Carly Simon is a singer so [...]

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21. Lovely memoir with lovely writing I don t really know anything about Carly Simon or James Taylor, so was going in cold And the story of their relationship is wonderful, romantic and then heartbreaking She is very kind to him and never bitter, even tho James probably did her wrong tho she does say at one point that she didn t know any man in the 70s in music who was faithful really enjoyed reading about the flings with Cat Stevens and Warren Beatty and the near fling with Mick Jagger oh how I lov [...]

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22. I can t tell if I don t like memoirs, or if I ve just had a bad run of them, but I did not enjoy this book It should be called Fortunate Woman Feels Sorry for Herself Simon portrays herself as a victim most the time but clearly doesn t make great decisions, sometimes creating her bad situations It was really hard to feel sympathetic when she grew up wanting for nothing, doing exactly what she wanted to do professionally, and having amazing opportunities land at her feet I realize hers is an inte [...]

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23. Carly Simon is currently a somewhat overlooked American treasure The composer and performer of nearly 20 albums of mostly original material and amasser of top 20 hit singles that remain in airplay rotation to this day as well as the author of a series of best selling children s books edited by Jacqueline Onassis Kennedy , Simon was sexy when it was unfashionable to be sexy, unafraid to speak of her upper class Manhattan family background when rock stars were all pretending to be from the undercl [...]

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24. I have a self admitted weakness for celebrity biographies, and found this book to be one of the most introspective, disturbing, voyeuristic, yet somehow optimistic memoirs that I ve read.

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25. The Half Life of Carly SimonThis is an enjoyable listen and I do mean listen, since the audio version of this autobiography is read by the author and includes a musical score woven throughout about the first half of Carly Simon s life.The narrative basically ends in 1984, when Carly as I ll take the liberty of calling her visits the obnoxious CEO of the publishing company that bears her father s name Suffice it to say, I m very glad that this book has been published by Macmillan.Still, it s an e [...]

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26. I ve always liked Carly Simon s voice I m a heavy metal guitar freak kind of gal, but I appreciate all kinds of other music I wouldn t say I m crazy about a lot of her material, but I ve always loved her voice and she could send a shiver down my spine with the right material That s the Way I Always Heard it Should Be is a masterpiece in my humble opinion Without knowing all that much about her other than some of her songs, that she was the daughter of the Simon in Simon and Schuster and had been [...]

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27. Elegant, touching, insightful, devastating and mesmerizing I have just finished Boys in the Trees and it is remarkable I was hooked from the very first paragraph This day may have been THE day, the very day when my identity was born Before the incident occurred, I didn t think about who I was After, I would spend the rest of my life testing myself to see if I had been right Her writing style is elegant and eloquent.Ms Simon gracefully leads the reader through her life piecing together her self i [...]

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28. The Death of the MemoirWhy be happy, when you can complain yes, it s a story of childhood pain it started with a slap, a gasp of air my mom holding me while chugging beer she gave me a long, cool sip wearing madness in her greasy slip and yes, precisely, this will be my life to my mom, I am her wife let s make it just a bit stranger write it all down, the great suffering deranger it is the memorist s duty to sell her soul a publisher s contract, down the rabbit hole the every bit of personal for [...]

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29. Bought this new book when it first came out because I ve loved listening to singing along with Carly Simon for 40 years It finally made it to the top of my reading pile I read the book in 24 hours I quite simply could not put it down A good friend said this was an honest book It sure was I appreciate all of Ms Simon s honesty the glimpses into her life Awesome

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30. Excellent insight into a reluctant pop culture superstar, especially of the 1970s.

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