Book Review: Love Life by Rob Lowe

Love Life by Rob Lowe
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Narrator: Rob Lowe
Length: 7.5 hours
Release Date: April 8, 2014
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Love Life is a bit of a misleading title for Rob Lowe’s latest book. It’s not about his romantic love life. It’s about loving life. Rob has written a series of unrelated vignettes about events in his life. Some are very touching, like the one about his son going off to college. Some are funny and some make Rob look like an idiot. I love that he is not afraid to share any story – he doesn’t seem to have an ego problem at all.

He explains why he left the West Wing to do one horrible series after another and why those series were so bad. I love insider Hollywood information like that. My only complaint about this book is that unlike his previous book, Stories I Only Tell My Friends, he does NOT NAME NAMES! for the more scandalous stories – with the exception of Jewel. That story was hilarious. You’ll have to read the book for that one alone. Anyway, he does provide cryptic hints when he describes the person and with some Googling, I probably could have figured out who the people were. But I was listening to this book on a road trip and couldn’t justify pulling over to make notes of who I needed to look up later. However, I’m pretty sure that the girl he took with him to Warren Beatty’s house was Melissa Gilbert. So there’s one mystery solved for you!

I loved listening to Rob narrate this audio book. Obviously, he is the best person to tell his own stories. The book is already written in a very conversational style and having Rob himself read it to me made it that much better. And he is actually a pretty good impressionist for some of the celebrities in the book. Some of his accents were pretty terrible though but I just thought it was funny, not annoying.

The great thing about Rob Lowe is that after a brief downturn in the 90s, his career is stronger than ever and he remains such a downright nice guy. Watch any of his appearances on Ellen and you can totally tell that he is not faking his awesome attitude. Ahem. I may still be crushing on him after all these years. Children of the 80s, this book is for you. Fans of West Wing, Parks and Rec, Californication or Behind the Candelabra, this book is for you too. Rob Lowe fans unite!

(I received this audio book courtesy of the Solid Gold reviewers program at Audiobook Jukebox.)

Other books by Rob Lowe: Stories I Only Tell My Friends