Book Review: Getting Naked

With her signature warmth and disarming humor, the beloved actress and New York Times bestselling author strips away the polished façade and shares what it’s really like to grow older, love harder, and start over. Now in her mid-sixties, Valerie reflects on the hard-won lessons of aging, self-worth, and letting go. From her experiences with menopause, relationships, and family trauma, she writes with clarity and compassion about the insecurities that have haunted her for decades: shame and anxiety about her body, and the false belief that her value depended on perfection. Through it all, Valerie reflects on the quiet, daily work of self-acceptance—the kind that doesn’t make headlines but changes lives. Getting Naked isn’t just a story of survival. It’s a reckoning—with her past, her family history, and the generational pain that shaped her. It’s about the myths we believe when we’re young—about beauty, love, success—and how we carry them until they break us open. It’s about unlearning the script that says women must please, endure, and stay silent.

Losing It...

Confession time: I had a huge crush on Valerie Bertinelli from the first time I saw her on TV on One Day At a Time in the mid-70's all through my junior high and high school years. I'm sure I wasn't the only teenaged male who did. There was something about that wholesome, girl-next-door look and how well she portrayed Barbara Cooper that just entranced me. Maybe it was because she reminded me in a lot of ways someone else I was crushing on at the time. Hard to say. Still, I've always considered her very tops of my list of celebrity crushes.

Anyway, last week I realized she had written an autobiography entitled Losing It - and Gaining My Life Back One Pound at a Time. I checked the non-fiction section of my local library and it was checked in. Not for long. I checked it out and eagerly read through it in a couple nights.

The book talks about her career both on the sitcom and other shows and TV movies. It also talks about her marriage to Eddie Van Halen, and the ups and downs of that relationship over the years. It talks about her greatest role - motherhood (to their son Wolfgang). It also talks about a woman who has struggled with her own sense of self-image from a very young age until in her 40's when she most recently became a spokesperson for Jenny Craig.

I found the book to be very easy going and honest, just as I would expect Valerie to be. She doesn't lay blame on anyone but herself for most of the problems she has encountered in life. She speaks straight from the heart and gives an honest portrayal of things she went through, why and what those choices led to. I found it a very enlightening read.

Does this book shake my image of her? Well, a couple things might have - but not enough. She still seems like someone I would love to get to know, just to sit down and talk to. She seems more like an everyday person who just happened to be famous rather than some kind of diva or huge "star".