ONCE UPON A TRAINWRECK

This memoir from Disney Channel child star Christy Carlson Romano, chronicles her toxic rise to fame, her descent into addiction, and how she made it through to the other side, stronger and more successful than before.

For a generation of kids, Christy Carlson Romano was their TV big sister. At her peak, she was sixteen years old and starring in two major television shows, Even Stevens and Kim Possible, and an original movie, Cadet Kelly. She was Disney's smart, serious girl next door, a role model who had it all together. But in reality, she was anything but.

As the youngest of four children, Christy was pushed into show business by an overbearing mother and a mobster father while still in elementary school. She wanted to be a good girl: to help her family and to make her parents happy. From indie movie gigs and Broadway performances in New York to television shoots in Hollywood, Christy's existence was dually marked by brilliance and turmoil: bright-eyed success on the stage and emotional and financial strife behind the scenes, Christy faced a rollercoaster of bullying, exploitation, and the relentless pursuit of perfection at every turn personally and professionally. And as she gets older, her people pleasing tendencies take a darker turn: she dates controlling man after controlling man, starts partying in to order fit in, descending into addiction, and is emotionally blackmailed into giving thousands of dollars to a manipulative psychic.

But after hitting rock bottombankrupt, single, recovering from a second miscarriage, and estranged from her family, she pulls her life back together, reparenting herself to be stronger and more successful than ever before.


Fully entrenched in the heart of the entertainment world, Christy rubs elbows with dozens of early aughts celebrities and big names, and Once Upon a Trainwreck is deliciously peppered with cameos. She attends middle school with the Culkins and Scarlett Johansson; constantly loses parts to Anne Hathaway; stars in TV series with Shia LaBeouf and Hillary Duff; tours with Marla Maples and visits Mar-a-Lago after; tries cocaine for the first time with Paris Hilton; gets in a bar fight with Lindsay Lohan; and dozens more.

But this is more than a celebrity memoir; it's an inspiring account of raising oneself, of finding inner strength and perseverance. Punctuated by letters from Christy to her two young daughters, Once Upon a Trainwreck is a propulsive and gripping testament to survival, self-discovery, and the pursuit of an authentic life.