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lpcleland's review
5.0
Finally! A well written memoir by not one but 2 brothers who grew up in TV and movies without self-destructing. A beautiful testament to role family can play in a surreal life. I especially enjoyed the flipping back and forth of both brothers voices as they recount their own remembrances of shared experiences.
joan_anne's review
3.0
Ron Howard, I appreciate your groundedness and loyalty to what means the most to you.
lisakerd's review
3.0
I loved how grounded Ron’s parents were, who then instilled those morals to him. I didn’t know anything about Clint Howard so I didn’t care for his additions of the book. I was also bummed Ron didn’t speak much of his experience directing movies past the first few.
jansbookcorner's review
4.0
A fun time spent listening to Ron and Clint discuss their life growing up. I now have all sorts of new conversation filler relating some of the interesting things I learned about the Howard family.
bargainsleuth's review
5.0
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The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family (Amazon) is a book that gives me all the feels. It transports me back to my childhood, when our family would huddle around the TV in the family room and watch Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, both set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just 100 miles south of us. Of course, my dad explained to me, the shows were really filmed in Los Angeles, but I didn’t care, It was good wholesome TV.
And speaking of wholesome TV, I also grew up watching shows like Gentle Ben and The Andy Griffith Show in syndication. I adored Gentle Ben, I really did, the kid, Clint Howard, was so earnest, I actually believed it was possible for a kid to have a bear as a pet. Andy Griffith was a show that played repeatedly on cable, and when I watched it, I enjoyed it, but did not go out of my way to watch it.
These shows helped form memories of my childhood, and two people, Ron Howard and Clint Howard, were front and center for them all. By the time I was moving on from Happy Days, so was Ron Howard, and while I wished he were in front of the camera, I have been blown away by his directorial choices, and many of his films are in our family library. And just like a Hitchcock cameo, if there’s a Ron Howard film, you can be sure to see his brother Clint acting in it, whether the part is small or large.
I listened to The Boys audiobook, and it was so great to hear Ron and Clint Howard reminisce. I have seen enough interviews with them over the years to understand that even though they worked in Hollywood, their parents kept them grounded. I didn’t even realize it until they were talking about it, but their dad, Rance, even co-starred on Gentle Ben with Clint during it’s two-year run.
This book, while it may talk about Hollywood, isn’t really about Hollywood at all. It’s about family. It’s about lessons learned from parents. It’s about those parents, who made sacrifices for the boys in their own careers, but never pushed the boys to think that their working had to support the family. It’s about the undeniably close relationship these two men had as brothers, even though they are five years apart in age. It’s about being grounded and down-to-earth in an industry full of big-headed egomaniacs.
In short, this book has a lot of heart. Ron and Clint Howard are not perfect in any way, they reveal their bad sides, too, especially Clint’s spiral into drug abuse. But there’s redemption, too, and the thankfulness of having navigated rough waters and come out on the other side of the tunnel wiser and more humble.
Of all the non-fiction books I’ve read or listened to this year, The Boys is my favorite.
The Boys: A Memoir of Hollywood and Family (Amazon) is a book that gives me all the feels. It transports me back to my childhood, when our family would huddle around the TV in the family room and watch Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley, both set in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, just 100 miles south of us. Of course, my dad explained to me, the shows were really filmed in Los Angeles, but I didn’t care, It was good wholesome TV.
And speaking of wholesome TV, I also grew up watching shows like Gentle Ben and The Andy Griffith Show in syndication. I adored Gentle Ben, I really did, the kid, Clint Howard, was so earnest, I actually believed it was possible for a kid to have a bear as a pet. Andy Griffith was a show that played repeatedly on cable, and when I watched it, I enjoyed it, but did not go out of my way to watch it.
These shows helped form memories of my childhood, and two people, Ron Howard and Clint Howard, were front and center for them all. By the time I was moving on from Happy Days, so was Ron Howard, and while I wished he were in front of the camera, I have been blown away by his directorial choices, and many of his films are in our family library. And just like a Hitchcock cameo, if there’s a Ron Howard film, you can be sure to see his brother Clint acting in it, whether the part is small or large.
I listened to The Boys audiobook, and it was so great to hear Ron and Clint Howard reminisce. I have seen enough interviews with them over the years to understand that even though they worked in Hollywood, their parents kept them grounded. I didn’t even realize it until they were talking about it, but their dad, Rance, even co-starred on Gentle Ben with Clint during it’s two-year run.
This book, while it may talk about Hollywood, isn’t really about Hollywood at all. It’s about family. It’s about lessons learned from parents. It’s about those parents, who made sacrifices for the boys in their own careers, but never pushed the boys to think that their working had to support the family. It’s about the undeniably close relationship these two men had as brothers, even though they are five years apart in age. It’s about being grounded and down-to-earth in an industry full of big-headed egomaniacs.
In short, this book has a lot of heart. Ron and Clint Howard are not perfect in any way, they reveal their bad sides, too, especially Clint’s spiral into drug abuse. But there’s redemption, too, and the thankfulness of having navigated rough waters and come out on the other side of the tunnel wiser and more humble.
Of all the non-fiction books I’ve read or listened to this year, The Boys is my favorite.