25. Confessions of a Prairie Bitch: How I survived Nellie Oleson and Learned to Love Being Hated by Alison Arngrim

Category: 50 Books

Finally, a Little House memoir worth reading.

This memoir is hilarious, sad, honest, sarcastic, sad again, dishy, laugh-out-loud, serious, funny, and a joy to read. This one does what the other two (Prairie Tale and The Way I See It) did not: dish.

Alison Arngrim manages to dish on the actors and actresses of the show, and not in a mean-spirited way.  Her stories of the show are hilarious and honest. So this one dishes and entertains as well. I think it’s because Arngrim is also a stand-up comic, so I think that would help make her writing far more entertaining because she used to doing just that, while the other two actresses (Melissa Gilbert and Melissa Sue Anderson) didn’t really have the writing thing down. Plus, in Gilbert’s memoir she was trying to be nice about everything. And in Anderson’s memoir, well, she basically recapped episodes on LHotP, I’m still trying to figure out why. Arngrim just tells it like it was.

It was great fun to read.

I actually laughed out loud at some parts and Mr. Fleegan would ask me what’s so funny and I’d tell him whatever shenanigans was going on and even he would laugh. Especially the part about how Arngrim and Gilbert (best friends, by the way) would go to the grocery store together as kids and people would be concerned for Gilbert all, “you have to get out of here. Nellie’s in the store too!”

It’s amazing how much America hated (and still hates) Nellie. And it’s not surprising that France? Loves Nellie.
How awesome it that?

If you only read one Little House on the Prairie memoir, read this one.

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