Prime logo Prime members: New to Audible?
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
The Princess Diarist  By  cover art

The Princess Diarist

By: Carrie Fisher
Narrated by: Carrie Fisher, Billie Lourd
Try for $0.00

$14.95/month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy for $13.50

Buy for $13.50

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Taxes where applicable.

Publisher's summary

2018 GRAMMY® Award for Best Spoken Word Album

The Princess Diarist is Carrie Fisher's intimate, hilarious and revealing recollection of what happened behind the scenes on one of the most famous film sets of all time, the first Star Wars movie.

PEOPLE magazine Best Book of Fall 2016

New York Times Best-seller

Star Wars VIII: The Last Jedi, featuring Carrie Fisher, is scheduled for release on December 15, 2017. Bright Lights: Starring Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds debuted on HBO in January 2017.

When Carrie Fisher recently discovered the journals she kept during the filming of the first Star Wars movie, she was astonished to see what they had preserved - plaintive love poems, unbridled musings with youthful naiveté, and a vulnerability that she barely recognized. Today, her fame as an author, actress, and pop-culture icon is indisputable, but in 1977, Carrie Fisher was just a teenager with an all-consuming crush on her costar, Harrison Ford.

With these excerpts from her handwritten notebooks, The Princess Diarist is Fisher's intimate and revealing recollection of what happened on one of the most famous film sets of all time - and what developed behind the scenes. Fisher also ponders the joys and insanity of celebrity, and the absurdity of a life spawned by Hollywood royalty, only to be surpassed by her own outer-space royalty. Laugh-out-loud hilarious and endlessly quotable, The Princess Diarist brims with the candor and introspection of a diary while offering shrewd insight into the type of stardom that few will ever experience.

©2016 Carrie Fisher (P)2016 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

People Magazine’s Best Book of Fall 2016

“Fisher offers a thoughtful, sardonic meditation on the price of fame, cost-of-living adjustments included.” (J.D. Biersdorfer, The New York Times Book Review)

“Characteristically frank and unflinching, funny and true...The Princess Diarist is about a woman’s relationship with desire - her own, and of others’ for her - writ large, as large as Star Wars.” (Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, Jezebel.com)

“In her funny and frequently touching new memoir The Princess Diarist, the iconic Star Wars actress and author reveals the diaries she kept as a 19-year-old starring in the blockbuster sci-fi film.... It’s an eye-opener for fans, but it also shows a gifted writer even at a young age. There was a lot going on between Princess Leia’s hair buns.” (Brian Truitt, USA Today)

Featured Article: Remembering Carrie Fisher with Our Favorite Quips and Quotes from Her Writings


Actress, writer, and advocate Carrie Fisher, best known for her performance as the bold, intelligent, and morally-grounded Princess Leia Organa in the Star Wars film franchise, was a hero to so many—an outspoken, brilliant, and, quite frankly, hilarious film icon who stood out from the Hollywood crowd. The late Star Wars star's legacy lives on forever in her candid memoirs and incisive fiction. Read on for Carrie Fisher's best quotes.

What listeners say about The Princess Diarist

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    5,212
  • 4 Stars
    2,157
  • 3 Stars
    944
  • 2 Stars
    211
  • 1 Stars
    95
Performance
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    6,091
  • 4 Stars
    1,212
  • 3 Stars
    383
  • 2 Stars
    113
  • 1 Stars
    66
Story
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    4,492
  • 4 Stars
    1,938
  • 3 Stars
    1,014
  • 2 Stars
    261
  • 1 Stars
    113

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

Sort by:
Filter by:
  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Come for the headlines, stay for the whole story

So, I am one who didn't get this book because of the pre-release hype of the "illicit" affair.

Spoiler, if you haven't seen or read anything else about this book, yes she talks about the affair with Ford, but no, she doesn't go into any detail if that's what you are after.

No, I was hoping for some hidden untold story from forgotten recollections of the filming of the first Star Wars movie from 1976 that would be revealed by a key actor.
Hmmm, not so much actually.
These are the recollections of Carrie Fisher of her own life and times during the time from just before being selected to play Leia and what her life quickly became after.

I had not ever listened to anything written by Carrie Fisher before this. And, after listening to her writing and her narration of her story, the ONLY one who could really narrate it!, I realized I had been missing her genuine good writing and comedic skills.
I had always known about about her later years battles with family, drugs and alcohol and just didn't think what she'd write would be very good, even though she's had plays and movies made from her writings.
I was wrong in that assumption and I really enjoyed listening to her views and opinions on what she had written about here.

I also thought it was excellent to have her own daughter, Billie Lourd, read the actual excerpts of her diary included in this book towards the end. In doing that, I think, it gave a flashback style and sounding more like it was Fisher herself at the time she was writing her thoughts and observations into her diary.
Very good!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

63 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

The Things You Wanted to Know

The things you wanted to know about Princess Leia and how Carrie Fisher felt about Princess Leia are here. How Leia formed Carrie, Carrie shaped Leia, Debbie influenced Carrie, how Harrison affected Carrie, and how Carrie as Leia formed a generation- my generation.

Those of us who were children when Star Wars came out, we who were raised on the films. Those of us raised by women who themselves had just missed women's liberation by a few years. We little girls who sat in front of that giant silver screen with upturned faces, learning.

We soaked in the knowledge that a girl could be pretty AND smart, quiet AND bold. Enslaved then free an entire galaxy. We learned to appreciate the strength of men without taking any crap from them. We felt the Force within us, quietly waiting, knowing it was there when we needed it.

It wasn't just Leia who taught us. We learned from the way Carrie lived her life, who she became, what space slugs of her own she slayed. How she fought mental illness, how she loved, the way she observed the world with wit, humor, and sass.

Princess, teacher, role model, icon, truth. Thank you, Carrie Fisher.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

38 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Unflinching, powerful, brilliant, and heartfelt...

I've never read or heard anyone speak so openly and eloquently about their feelings. Her wit, strength, and heart shine in all of her books- here though especially. I wept when Billie began reading her mother's words. Her delivery was so fluid it was chilling. I'd known that scathing, self loathing voice for some time in my own head. Imagine knowing that voice could drop in for a visit at any time, or that you could hear it continually whispering somewhere nearby... Carrie's writings helped me understand not just herself, but my wife's difficulties and fears, and my own. Carrie Fisher will always be a great inspiration to me. She was, and is, a true hero.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Celebrity Realist

Having Billie Lourd step in and read in the voice of the young Carrie was very impactful. Having Carrie read the bulk of the book drove home how personal a book like this is. Her perspective is heartfelt, and entertaining.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

21 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Carrie finds her diarys~ excellent 5 STARS~

PLOT: Carrie Fisher finds the diary's under her floor boards and gives us a look back at Star Wars and beyond~

Carrie Fisher is both an actress and author. She is also admits to addictions of several kinds and being bipolar. She finds her diary she kept during the making of Star Wars. Carrie begins with her debut in the movie Shampoo with Warren Beatty. She is very funny and "eager' to make it as an actress. She also 'reads' for the part in an Space Movie we come to know as Star Wars. Her close up look at George Lucas and how he gave her the chance of a life time. The diary then moves to England where Star Wars was filmed. Being 19 and very naïve let alone the only female in the crew. Her focus in this book is her relationship with Harrison Ford who saves her from a drunken encounter with the UK film crew. The end result is a 3 month affair between the two. Ford was married at the time and Fisher was not. This is an excellent look into the past with Fisher as the author of the fast moving and funny/sad look at the "affair". Carrie shares her brilliant use of words and at times meandering look at her life and times of the late 1970s. She includes some hysterical looks at how age and time have made her (Carrie Fisher) as she refers as a "lap dancer/ media whore" who signs autographs for money to stay financially solvent. Her view of the events at the photo/book signings is very funny and often brilliant. Her humor is expressed with a diverse use of swear words and descriptive phrase and voices. I love this lady. She also oddly enough brings up a look at her own "mortality" as part of the view of her sarcastic look at autograph hounds. This is an excellent bio. Carrie is very good at both writing and narration of this book. Her daughter Billie Lourds also narrates a brief section of some reflections on the Harrison Ford old feelings and relationship. 5 STARS~ wish it were longer. Glad she wrote it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

A few hours w/ a Princess

Especially after the events of this past week, this book is a must listen. Not read, but listen. This allows us to spend several hours with our favorite intergalactic Princess and in some fashion it helped with grieving and coming to terms with the fact of her death. I'm grateful she made this for us before she passed so we could not only hear her wit and charm again but to hear details about the making of Star Wars that we may not have heard before.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

As Colorful as Carrie herself

Carrie Fishers recent passing has bound to create a new interest in her writings. In this, her last book, we get to see Carrie in true form. From her musings as a girl trying to figure out her way as an actress, the reveal of her affair with Harrison Ford and learning how to be Carrie as much as Lea . Each recollection is filled with as much wit and detail you would expect from her. She uses her language beautifully in her writings and still comes off as a relatable woman learning to love herself. I only say to listen to the audio book because Carrie herself reads it. Just hearing her voice again slightly fills the hole left by her passing. This truly is a beautiful book for everyone who loved her as a person, as well as a good reminder that she was so much more than that princess from space. Thank you Carrie, we all miss you so much.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

So grateful

I laughed! I cried! (A lot) How lucky are we to have this? She is so filled with gratitude and appreciation for Princess Leia and embraces her destiny as the first heroine of her generation. Listening to this book was also unsettling. There are many many startling prophetic references to her own death, etc. It is a definite must read for any Star Wars fan.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

12 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

An Affair to Remember

Carrie Fisher had an affair with Harrison Ford during the filming of Star Wars, she cared more for him than he did her. That's pretty much the book. I gave it a 3 because I liked her and it seemed disrespectful to score the book any lower since she has passed away.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars

Not what I expected but still good

I was hoping for more insight and stories from behind the scenes. The actual diary entries could be skipped and are not that great. still a good listen, but I won't come back to it.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

You voted on this review!

You reported this review!

9 people found this helpful