Carol Burnett discusses her relationship with her oldest daughter, Carrie, along with the stress Carrie put her through with her teenage drug addiction and the sadness of Carrie's diagnosis of lung cancer. ( )

I thought this book was great. I wish I had a mom like Carol. The love she feels for children is amazing. Her daughter had her ups and downs but she did an amazing job staying sober. I think this is a side of Carol most people rarely see. ( )

A sweet love letter to Carol's daughter Carrie. She includes their emails to one another.

It includes Carrie's unfinished novel witch I didn't read. ( )

I don't know if I'll ever be able to read this, but if I am, it's not going to be until the daughters are all grown up.

Library copy

Review: Carrie and Me by Carol Burnett.

This is a heartwarming story of a mother and daughter’s love. Carol Burnett first tells the reader about the hard road her daughter Carrie went through with drug addiction. As a teenager, Carrie thought she was not pretty and had many insecurities about herself that led her down a path of hanging around with the wrong crowd and by the time her parents discovered what was going on with Carrie, she hit bottom. It took two attempts in rehab before Carrie became clean and beat the addition. Carol also writes about how it affected the family and what brought them through this crisis. In the meantime Carol Burnett was also having problems in her marriage which brought more despair to the family.

Carol moves on writing about how Carrie was a multitalented, writer, an actor and a musician. Carrie’s life seemed to be going in the right direction and she even got married which within four years came to an end. During Carrie’s adventures and motivated activities both mother and daughter became very close. They were writing a play together and while Carrie was on the road they would e-mail each other frequently and send data back and forth to keep their work on the play progressing. The play was called, “The Hollywood Arms” which was about Carol’s childhood. The play went to Broadway with mixed reviews. At the same time Carrie was writing a book about a cowboy and a young girl traveling to Graceland. Carrie, herself even traveled on the road to Graceland to get the feeling of the adventure to be able to write how it really felt and developed it into her story. Carrie also sent her mother pages and pages of written work to get her mother’s input about her book.

This is about the time Carrie came down sick. Carrie only thought she had a bug of some kind but then she finally had to accept that there was something really wrong with her health. Carol and Carrie were shocked and stunned when the diagnoses was lung cancer. Carrie put up a good fight trying to beat the cancer but the cancer was stronger and more powerful. The mother daughter bond tightens intensely but they both knew the end was near. Carrie was only thirty-eight years old when her life ended.

“Sometimes life seems so unfair” stated Carol. A mother should not see her child go before herself. The heartbreak was traumatic in the Burnett’s family. There were more scenes of affection and events throughout the book that carried it through. Carrie never did get to finish her book but asked her mother to finish it, and Carlo did, out of the love for her daughter. That is how Carol ended this book about her and her daughter. The final pages were Carrie’s story of the cowboy and Graceland….
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