This book shows its love and respect for its subject in every page. Paris never has to say "Wow, Audrey sure was a great gal" to show his respect for her. The love is in the details. He gently corrects all other biographies' previous misconceptions and incorrect information with proven fact and exhaustive interviews, and by the vast amounts of meticulous information that just needed to be put out there. Sometimes this information can be a bit much, though. Some people may start twitching in the middle of Audrey's family tree, wanting to get on to the more well-known bits, or feel uncomfortable in the more war-torn sections. Personally, the great detail about Audrey's slow death is too much for me. The first time I read this book I stole away to my bedroom and read on my bed (still the best place to read), and remembered sobbing hysterically til the end. It might be interesting to know and even interesting to read, but it's just so much. It's hard to handle reading about her pain and her patient suffering through it, and her asking her children to let her go because she was ready. Maybe it's just because I'm a vivid reader who visualizes what they read, but it was devastating to read. That was the first time I really realized that Audrey Hepburn was dead.

Still, don't let that alter your opinion or make you stay away from this book. If someone were to say, "If there was only one Audrey biography people could read, which would it be?" I would say without hesitation, "Barry Paris's book." In one volume you have a highly engaging (though maybe a bit dry for people who are more recreational readers) and correct story, with a good collection of two photo sections thrown in. Because I'll be honest: I always look at the picture sections of biographies first. You can tell a lot about a biography by the pictures: if they're all conventional pictures you've seen everywhere, then the information is going to be the same. As an added bonus, Barry Paris is a well-known and well respected biographer who has also penned definitive biographies on Greta Garbo and Louise Brooks (whose biography is about the size of a city telephone book!), so you can be assured that he treats all of his subjects with the utmost care and thoroughly researches everything before putting it on the page.

Rating: 5 stars

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