Never Say Never: Finding a Life That Fits

In this audio edition of Ricki Lake’s tell-all memoir, she chronicles the ups and downs of childhood, early success in Hairspray, subsequent Hollywood disappointments, weight struggles, talk-show fame, ill-fated marriage, and various romantic entanglements. Her reading is most passionate when she seems angry—which is often—and during sections about the joy she discovered while making a documentary about the homebirth movement. However, the pace of Lake’s narrations is dizzying. In the book’s final chapters, she slows down a bit, describing the peace she felt at a simple cottage in Malibu and with the man who is now her second husband. Among the production’s highlights is an entertaining foreword read by filmmaker John Waters, who cast Lake in Hairspray and has been a good friend ever since. An Atria hardcover. (Apr.)