At a Glance
- Read by: Cohen takes the reading credit alongside the byline, which is the only defensible casting for a diary that depends on knowing exactly who is talking
- At its heart: Celebrity access, daily life as document, candor used as both a virtue and a shield
- Vibe: Chatty and unbroken, a year of nights logged out loud
- Short version: Good company and honest about its own shallowness, best for listeners who already know the cast of names.
Fourteen hours of diary is a serious ask, and this audiobook makes it in the voice of the diarist, since Andy Cohen holds the reading credit as well as the byline. The premise has not changed since the last volume: a year of appointments, arguments, dinners and dog walks, written down nightly and published with the names left in. The description lists the year's haul without much modesty, from a tour with Anderson Cooper to a Sirius station, an appearance on Real Time that his mother thought he was not intellectually prepared for, a guest editorship at Entertainment Weekly and a New Year's Eve special on network television. Whether that sounds like company or like homework is the entire buying decision.
What We Made of It
Credit where the title is concerned: it is accurate, and one December 2016 five-star makes the case in its headline and its opening sentence. That response argues that whatever anyone thinks of Cohen, he cannot be accused of hiding, and that the diary form ends up revealing as much about his subjects as about him. That is the strongest case anyone makes for this book, and it happens to be right. The pleasure of the form is not insight. It is proximity, delivered without the smoothing that a ghostwriter or a proper memoir structure would impose, and the flatness of a daily entry is what lets the occasional sharp observation land at all.
Self-reading is the correct decision here and probably the only workable one. A diary is a document with one voice by definition, and the gossip in it depends on knowing who is talking, which celebrity the aside is aimed at, and how much of the malice is real. A hired reader would have to guess at all three. Cohen takes the material personally because it is his, and the fourteen and a half hours are structured as one long confidence rather than as a performance. What that costs, you notice later: nobody is editing the speaker, and the speaker is not inclined to edit himself.
Why Superficial Works as an Audiobook
Compulsion is the honest selling point, and one December 2016 four-star describes the mechanism better than the publisher does. That reader, who has read every book of his, admits it gives them agita, notes that the diary format does not break into chapters, and confesses to looking up four hours later wondering why they do this to themselves. In audio the absence of chapters is a real property, not a metaphor. Nothing tells you where to stop, one date runs into the next, and a fourteen-hour recording with no natural seams turns into either a binge or an abandonment.
Access is the other thing being sold, and the description is refreshingly clear that access is all it is. The year covered includes welcoming Teresa Giudice home from a prison stint, offending people on the record, the Hamptons in season, the Manhattan dating market as reported from inside it, and a dog named Wacha who gets roughly the coverage a spouse would. Nobody involved pretends this is a reckoning. The copy promises dishier, juicier and friskier than the last volume, and treats being a mama's boy and a Cardinals fan as load-bearing character details, which in a diary they genuinely are.
What Might Not Land
The lowest grade in the column, three stars from December 2018, carries a structural complaint. Having read the two earlier books, that reader calls the diary format a lazy way to write one, describes the previous volume as a slog of stream of consciousness stuffed with names you do not know, and rates this one only slightly higher. The name problem is worse in audio than on the page. You cannot glance back to check who somebody was, the surnames arrive at conversational speed, and a listener without a working knowledge of Bravo's roster will spend real stretches unsure who is being discussed.
Bookkeeping on the listing fails in three separate ways. The grade counter reads one, while five dated responses sit visible beneath it, spread across nine years of comment. Both series fields are empty, on a book the copy itself introduces as a follow-up, with a third related title surfacing in the responses. And the pull quote doing the persuading, the line about a Fresca and tequila, is attributed in the copy to the previous book rather than to this one, which the sentence admits and most skimming buyers will not notice.
Who Should Pick Up Superficial
Watch What Happens Live regulars are the target and will be delighted, particularly anyone who follows the Real Housewives franchise closely enough to place the names without help. Listeners who enjoy a diary for its texture, the way a life sounds when it is recorded daily rather than shaped afterward, will find this a good example of a form that very few celebrities attempt honestly. It also works as company. Fourteen hours of somebody talking about their week is a specific kind of comfort, and the self-narration makes it feel closer to a phone call than to a book.
Anyone hoping for the story of how a producer built a television empire should buy a different book, since this one covers a year and not a career, and the reflection stays at the depth the title advertises. Skip it as well if unfamiliar names irritate you, or if you need chapter breaks to manage a long listen. Newcomers should probably start with the earlier volumes, which the responses treat as the entry point, although nothing on this page would tell you that. Nobody buys a diary for its architecture, and nobody should read that 4.2 as the verdict of a crowd.
Before You Listen
Is the Superficial audiobook a good entry point to Andy Cohen's books?
Probably not. A November 2016 five-star describes ordering it the moment it appeared, after finishing the previous two, and that is the typical reader here. The diary assumes you already know the shows, the recurring names and the running jokes, none of which the recording pauses to explain for a newcomer.
Is the Real Housewives franchise a big part of the audiobook?
Constantly, though as gossip rather than as production history. The description places the year's diary among red carpets, reunions and a homecoming for one cast member after a jail sentence. Expect opinions about people in the franchise and very little about how the shows are actually made or commissioned.
How candid is the audiobook about other famous people?
Very, by the publisher's own account. The copy promises stories that will keep a publicist awake at night and describes an ongoing case of foot-in-mouth disease where celebrities are concerned, with the year's reunions and red carpets supplying most of the occasions. Expect the judgment delivered in the same breath as the anecdote.
Is it worth listening to if you dislike celebrity memoirs?
Unlikely. The book makes no argument beyond its own record of a year, and the title concedes the point before you start. Readers who want a life examined rather than logged tend to find the form thin, and fourteen hours is a lot to give to someone else's calendar.
