As a young adult, I admired Andrew McCarthy ever since his first movie, Class. I might have even had a crush on him at that time in the the 80’s. How can you not adore his boyish charm and good looks? So when I saw that McCarthy had a memoir, I just had to get my greedy little hands on an early copy. I was not disappointed.

McCarthy’s memoir is a glimpse into his early life and film career. As a late bloomer, he became painfully aware of his shortcomings. But, he managed to adapt and become successful at his craft. Being that the primary focus of this memoir is McCarthy’s entrance into the filmmaking world, it was interesting to read how it all happened. As the saying goes, right place, right time. However, I would have wanted to read more about McCarthy’s entry into directing and his directorial debut.

I have yet to read McCarthy’s other written works, but if this memoir is any indication of his writing ability, I’m sure I’ll be just as impressed.

So, if you enjoy memoirs and have ever been a fan of McCarthy for his films of any of his other works, you won’t be disappointed. Five glowing stars.

I received a digital ARC from Grand Central Publishing through NetGalley. The review herein is completely my own and contains my honest thoughts and opinions.

I have loved Andrew McCarthy since I was sixteen years old...I am now 54. When I saw Pretty in Pink I was definitely "Team Blane" or "Team McCarthy". Most of my friends all had a crush on James Spader but I wanted the guy with the boyish face and dark hair. It is always nice to know your "crush" is a decent human being and I was glad to learn this of McCarthy.

This is a well written memoir, I had no idea he was such a good writer...It is self-reflective, well articulated and not bitter. I've always admired him as an actor and director and would watch anything he does. I enjoyed reading this it was very compelling and it felt honest, frank and yet kind. I've always liked his work so it was good to learn more about his background and personal life - which was really interesting. He's been through a lot and it's good to see him doing so well.

Andrew McCarthy's enlightening look back at the pivotal years that (mis)labeled him as one of the infamous 'Brat Pack,' the small group of young actors at the height of the newly emerging teen-oriented films that dominated the 1980s, is a sincere effort by the actor to give the reader a glimpse behind the scenes, as well as conveying some level of catharsis with his own personal and professional life.

Many of the films and actors in this teen-dominated time period had a big impact on me. But I discovered them on lazy weekends in the 90s, watching them one after another, memorizing lines, obsessing over the soundtracks, and cursing fate that I hadn't been born with red hair. So in my memory 'Brat Pack' wasn't a negative label, it was an endearing one. However, learning that the actors shunned the label, distancing themselves from future films together, leading to the end of this film era I loved so much, has forever altered the term for me.

Sometimes the truth hurts.

If you're picking this one up expecting salacious gossip on your favorite 'Brat Pack' cast mates, you might be disappointed. McCarthy is forthcoming, but also very much a gentleman. Surprisingly, he was not close with his fellow Brat Packers, and it just reaffirmed what good actors they were for me.  If you watch St. Elmo's Fire, you might think they were the best of friends off-screen as well, but I was surprised to learn how young McCarthy actually was when he made that film, as well as how new he was to acting.

What I enjoyed most about this memoir was the actor's memories of living in New York City, attending NYU, and how he always seemed to find himself among the Hollywood elite, but mostly as an observer on the periphery and not as a participant.

He's frank about his struggles with alcohol and drugs, his tumultuous relationship with his parents and siblings, and the teachers and mentors that instructed and inspired him in front of and behind the camera.

Brat is a quick and engaging read. I didn't want to put it down once I started, and I was impressed with the author's writing and openness, enjoying the glimpse behind the scenes of the films that have become so nostalgic for so many.

I was super excited to get to read this one. I love Andrew McCarthy and I jumped at the chance to read this. I loved it so much I will be ordering a copy of this one right away, It was faced paced, well-written glimpse into his life, Highly recommend it. Love love love love love this book. Did I mention I loved this book?

I've always been a fan of Andrew McCarthy's work, from The Beniker Gang to Pretty in Pink and more recently, The Family. I greatly anticipated reading this book and realized I knew virtually nothing about him outside of his acting. What I found most relatable about McCarthy is his social anxiety and introversion. While he clearly enjoyed acting, he is extremely self-conscious. It's refreshing. He points out the insanity of Hollywood and fame, like the time he wore a pair of torn pants to an interview and it was immediately assumed that it was a fashion statement. He just didn't know the pants were torn. Another example is a time when everyone laughed when he made an obviously unfunny joke. Some celebrities would bask in that kind of adoration, but it only made him uncomfortable. As for the book's title, he talks about finding fame and being labeled part of the "Brat Pack" when he didn't fit in with that group either. Good read if you are interesting in the journey of an actor, a fan of 80's movies, or perhaps just an introvert looking to relate.

I saw this book about a beloved actor from some of my all-time favorite movies. So, to say I was over the moon to read Andrew's book would be an understatement. I'm sad that my computer would not open the protected file. I didn't notice that it wasn't available on kindle. I will eventually find a way to read this book.

Thank you to publisher for opportunity to read and review.

Andrew McCarthy has written an enjoyable memoir which chronicles his first taste of acting and the subsequent rise to Hollywood fame. Although he was lumped together with the Brat Pack actors of the times, he had a lot more depth to him than was portrayed by the media when speaking of this group of actors. He gives insight into the movies/characters he created and the stars he acted with, while also capturing his emotions at the time, McCarthy has written a compelling memoir that will have 80s movies fans intrigued.

Thank you for the ARC.

Fun book. Brings back so many memories. Loved the pictures too!

Thanks to author, publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book. While I got the book for free, it had no bearing on the rating I gave it.

Unfortunately, I am unable to review this book because it is unavailable on the kindle format. I look forward to picking up a copy once it is published.

Unfortunately, I was unable to read this book as it was not available on Kindle. This was a disappointment as I really wanted to read about McCarthy's life.

This book was a guilty pleasure! As a young person in the 80’s I just loved Andrew’s movies. Pretty in Pink, Mannequin and Weekend at Bernie’s are just a few I look back upon fondly. Andrew goes back to when he first realized he wanted to act and each step along the way that brought him to where he is today. He reveals that he is a very private person, so this book is not about his personal life, but it does touch upon a few relationships he’s had over the years with some famous and not so famous peers. He discusses his battles with alcohol and drugs along the way and how he finally decided to stop. He’s an excellent writer and this book was a great short read.
Thanks to Netgalley for the eARC!

Andrew McCarthy - actor; heart-throb-of-my-youth; talented author. I knew Mr. McCarthy had done some travel writing, but I have yet to read any of his material. With BRAT, I was most pleasantly surprised that his writing is captivating. I thoroughly enjoyed this brief memoir and I'm looking forward to reading more of his work.

I spotted this book in one of the publisher’s catalogues a little while ago, but I couldn’t place the author. The cover photo didn’t call to mind any movies that I’ve seen — although, after reading Brat, that kind of made sense: I have seen surprisingly few of the movies from the Brat Pack era, despite being quite familiar with the actors’ post-1980s work. After checking IMDb, I learned that I’ve only seen McCarthy in two roles (in The Joy Luck Club and two episodes of White Collar). I have, however, seen a lot of the stuff he’s directed. When the book became available for review, I was in-between books, and decided to dive right in. It’s a short memoir, but one that does offer some interesting tidbits for anyone interested in this particular segment of movie history.

In Brat, McCarthy offers a brief account of his early life, what led to his decision to become an actor, his short tenure at acting college, and early movies. He writes about his rather unguided move to New York to attend theatre school: he loved performing and theatre, but retained a considerable lack of confidence and self-doubt. He writes warmly of the teachers/instructors who unknowingly gave him the confidence to stick with it, despite certain obstacles and frequent disappointments. He gives a brief glimpse into life in New York City at the time, his bohemian lifestyle there, and some of the characters he met along his journey.

Throughout the memoir, McCarthy also writes about his relationship with his family (especially his difficult relationship with his father), and also how others reacted to his newfound and growing celebrity. He keeps his book focused on his own experiences, however, and doesn’t try to come up with a grand theory of celebrity or how best to cope with it.

McCarthy’s ascent to the height of 1980s stardom was by no means engineered — he didn’t have the same focus, strategy or drive as Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, or others from that era (or many of today’s stars). He writes about his early, fumbling attempts to get cast in movies, his lack of focus on his “career”, eager mainly to just have the next job. I really like reading about Hollywood in the 1980s-1990s, how often the stories are about happy accidents, unusual paths to success, and so forth. Often, when reading more-recent success stories, it all feels far more corporate and industrialized.

McCarthy includes a few stories from his early Hollywood experiences, including his “brief tenure in Beverly Hills as roommate to an international sex symbol movie icon [Jacqueline Bisset] and her Russian defector ballet star boyfriend settled into surreal Hollywood normality.” McCarthy and Bisset co-starred in Class, and it’s an endearing story of generosity on Bisset’s part.

The Brat Pack

It is inevitable that anything McCarthy writes about the Brat Pack will be of interest. The tag attached to the group of young, up-and-coming stars of the 1980s, McCarthy found himself lumped in with them on account of starring in many of the same movies and other successful films of the era.

This book is an examination of a time that had been willfully ignored by me for so long—albeit a generation of moviegoers would not always make that easy to do. Sometimes things happen, we live with their result, and then occasionally, a long time distant, we try to make sense of them. The following pages are my attempt to do just that.

While writing about St. Elmo’s Fire, perhaps the ultimate Brat Pack movie, given its cast, McCarthy addresses his inclusion in the group. Or, rather, his confusion about his inclusion given that he felt very much like an outsider, or that at times the other pack members “disparaged” and excluded him. He writes about his good working relationships with Demi Moore, Ally Sheedy, and Molly Ringwald (who he starred with in Pretty in Pink), but it’s with the other male members of the pack that things weren’t as smooth as the media picture might have suggested.

There were times he felt excluded by Estevez, Lowe, and Nelson — including for the magazine feature which ultimately led to the coining of the “Brat Pack” phrase. However, McCarthy isn’t offering gossipy criticism of his fellow brats — it’s clear that the exclusion hurt his feelings, but he also paints a clear picture of someone who didn’t have nearly the confidence and sense of purpose as his contemporaries, and this anxiety would have inevitably led him to withdraw and hold something back. In fact, he writes quite generously of them and their talents. He seems to have had a fine relationship with Rob Lowe, who was also in McCarthy’s debut movie, Class — “I was always affectionately bemused by Rob’s self-awareness and career savvy instincts.” In Judd Nelson, he sensed “an edgy ambition” and therefore “circled him warily”. McCarthy’s relationships with Estevez was a little more complicated:

I was friendly enough with Emilio but we never connected in any real way. I always felt his judgment, as if he belonged to a club I could never join. A few years later we were both asked to do a film about the young men who organized the Woodstock music festival. I was excited by the idea, but Emilio wasn’t interested if I was involved. I took it quite personally, but, in fairness to him, this was after the “Brat Pack” moniker had been leveled and Emilio was taking great pains to distance himself from any association with those likewise stigmatized. It hurt my feelings nonetheless, and I don’t think the movie ever got made.

It’s inevitable, as he accepts, that his career will be examined in relation to the other Brats. His memoir, too, will likely be considered in relation to those written by his contemporaries. I’ve read Rob Lowe’s two memoirs, Emilio Estevez’s (a joint-memoir with his father, Martin Sheen), and also Jon Cryer’s. These four books were all excellent. They are also more substantial and digressive, their authors interested in recounting their experiences at greater length.

Had the Brat Pack existed as a tight-knit community, perhaps we might have found a way to band together and withstand the stinging comments from a disparaging media—maybe even been able to laugh it off. Instead, a cluster of young and scared actors trying to make a name for themselves got some mud slung at them and ran for the hills.

McCarthy, by comparison, seems keen to keep moving on, offering much briefer accounts of his time on the sets of his movies. This desire to move on, to distance himself from the group, also led him to work more with European directors. I was interested to learn that this ultimately put him in Berlin when the Wall came down. While walking about on that day, he was pulled aside by someone who recognized him from one of his movies.

After reading Brat, one gets a sense of McCarthy’s shyness back then, which is reflected throughout his memoir. This brevity doesn’t make the memoir thin — the author still manages to provide some interesting insight into his career and life. McCarthy doesn’t wallow in his mistakes, nor does he really crow about his achievements (there’s a sense that he’s a bit surprised by his early successes). He writes about his early and quick descent into alcoholism, and how it affected his work. Here is a short bit about his work on Mannequin:

Smiling drug dealers regularly popped by the set like FedEx deliverymen… while I had tried it before, for the first time I attempted to act while on cocaine. If tension is the enemy of good acting, what part of doing cocaine—which does nothing but create tension—could be considered a good idea?

Overall, then, Brat is a well-written briskly-paced, and engaging read. A must for fans of 1980s Hollywood. I’d also recommend it if you enjoyed other memoirs by Brat Packers.