Christina McDowell
Wendy Lawless has written a beautiful, and sometimes gritty memoir of her twenties. After a tumultuous upbringing, she finds herself lost and looking for love among artists in 1980's New York City, while finding her footing as an actress. Inspiring and often heart-wrenching, Wendy finally discovers what it means and how it feels to live ‘happily ever after.’
Booklist
[Lawless] writes with charming candor... A lively, at times scandalous, tale of a twenty-something discovering herself.
Michael Hainey
"Before Lena Dunham and Co. were traipsing through Millenial-clogged Brooklyn, there was the young, fierce, and funny Wendy Lawless, conquering through the weird, wild, wide-open streets of Manhattan in the early-80s. Witty, poignant and vulnerable, Lawless knows how to spin a tale."
O Magazine
[A] darkly comic memoir…[Lawless] chronicles her mother’s decline from sparkling femme fatale to desperate drunk in this simultaneously chilling and hilarious tale, whose unmistakable message is that though Lawless has, in some ways, led a privileged life, she never got the one thing she most wanted: her mother’s love."
Anne Korkeakivi
"A searing memoir that reads like a novel, as Lawless’s beautiful, unstable mother careens through the swinging sixties and seventies in New York, London, Paris and Morocco, two captive blond daughters in tow, before bottoming out in Boston. What astonishes is the author’s ability to tell her often hair-raising story of survival not only with lucidity and fluency but wry humor."
Tim Gunn
What a heart-breaking memoir. I will never look at a blue nightgown the same way again!”
Columbus Dispatch
The details shine. Lawless is observant and often profanely funny.
USA Today
Lawless has an engaging voice… seems to have an unending number of stories to tell.
Kirkus
"Frequently entertaining chronicle of a daughter’s sad, detached upbringing."
BookPage
This miracle of a memoir is completely free from self-pity, and it’s surprisingly suspenseful.
Sarah Colonna
I was blown away by Wendy's ability to tell the story of such an emotional, troubled upbringing with such heart, love, and oftentimes, humor. If she isn't bitter, maybe none of us have the right to be. I found her story riveting.
New York Times Book Review
Praise for Heart of Glass
"Lawless is a plucky, sympathetic narrator and grapples bravely with setback after setback.
Susanna Sonnenberg
"Mothers, in spite of what we wish desperately to believe, are sometimes very, very bad at taking care of children. Wendy Lawless survived her mother's flagrant horror show to bear witness and record her astonishing childhood. Chanel Bonfire makes an undesirable truth more vivid: some mothers just plain suck."
Lawless’s chronicles of life with her charming, wildly unstable mother could be bleak, but the author’s wit, resilience, and compassion make her story illuminating and inspiring.”'s Digest
Publishers Weekly
"As she shares her progression from an insecure, troubled girl to a young woman who can stand confidently on her own two feet, the unsinkable Lawless tells a tale of triumph over a difficult past. Readers will be drawn to her unique blend of sweetness, grit, and resilience."
People
"Lawless has a fine eye for detail; reading about her misadventures will give readers—especially anyone who was single in 1980s New York City—a delicious shudder."
Cristina Alger
Chanel Bonfire is both terribly funny and terribly tragic, often at the same time. With remarkable clarity, wit, and grace, Wendy Lawless recounts a childhood defined by her wildly unstable mother, a woman who can morph from Grace Kelly to Joan Crawford in the blink of an eye. I laughed a lot, teared up once or twice, and called my mom to say ‘I love you’ once I finished.”
Reader's Digest
Lawless’s chronicles of life with her charming, wildly unstable mother could be bleak, but the author’s wit, resilience, and compassion make her story illuminating and inspiring.
Booklist
[Lawless] writes with charming candor... A lively, at times scandalous, tale of a twenty-something discovering herself.
USA Today
[A] quick but powerful read that you can only wish was fiction.”
From the Publisher - AUDIO COMMENTARY
"Readers will be drawn to [Wendy's] unique blend of sweetness, grit, and resilience." —Publishers Weekly
