3.5 stars

I listened to a lot of this, but for whatever reason it didn't grab me like Cohen's diary.

Love the family stories and think this is the one where he talks about his start in Hollywood/NY (that was fun), but I don't remember much more than that.... ( )

Most Talkative: Stories from the Front Lines of Pop Culture

I Picked Up This Book Because: I didn’t know this book existed so of course I had to listen once I discovered it.

I would like to be friends with Andy Cohen. He lives such a fabulous life and has such great stories. I loved hearing about his beginnings at CBS and his endless love for Oprah and Susan Lucci. We also hear about his time at Trio and of course Bravo. I really enjoyed it all.

The Random Thoughts:

4 Stars ( )

Andy Cohen is Bravo’s executive vice president of Development and Talent and the executive producer of several shows on Bravo, in addition to hosting Watch What Happens Live and Love Connection.

Most Talkative is Andy’s life story from his childhood growing up in St. Louis up through 2012 when this book was published. Hi primary focus is his professional life. He includes some funny celebrity anecdotes from when he worked at CBS. For instance, he’s a Susan Lucci super fan and his encounters with her over the years are amusing. He’s also a huge Oprah fan and has had a few, shall we say, interesting encounters with her. One of them didn’t go so well and he’s not afraid to be truthful and take the blame.

To be honest, I chose this book because my secret shame is that I have recently become obsessed with The Real Housewives of Orange County, the first installment of The Real Housewives franchise that Andy produces. Unfortunately, although he does write about the origin of the series, he doesn’t go into any juicy details about the individual housewives on RHOC. He does have some tidbits about some of the other housewives shows. And he does write in depth about how the death of Taylor Armstrong’s husband was handled on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Fans of that show will appreciate that I’m sure.

Even though I didn’t get the dirt I was looking for, I definitely enjoyed this audiobook. Andy reads it himself and if you’ve ever watched him on TV, you know that he is high energy and engaging. He’s the same way reading this book.

He has written two more books since Most Talkative was published: The Andy Cohen Diaries: A Deep Look at a Shallow Year and Superficial: More Adventures from the Andy Cohen Diaries. I plan on listening to those as well just in case they have the behind the scenes info I’m looking for. I’ll keep you posted! ( )

A breezy read of pop culture candy. ( )

Liked the bits about his real life, disliked the bits about his career. All in all, this memoir had potential but it lacked narrative structure and focus. ( )