Say Everything: A Memoir: A Memoir

by Ione Skye

Gen X icon Ione Skye bares all in an achingly vulnerable coming-of-age memoir about chasing fame, desire, and true love in the shadow of her famous, absent father.

"Yep, Ione Skye wrote a memoir. I gobbled it up." – MIRANDA JULY In 1987, sixteen-year-old Ione Skye landed the breakout role of Diane Court, the dream girl who inspires John Cusack’s iconic boombox serenade in the hit Cameron Crowe film, Say Anything. While Skye seemed perfectly typecast as an aloof valedictorian, she was anything but.

Deserted by her dad, the folk singer legend Donovan, Skye was a ninth-grade dropout who sought solace and validation in the eyes of audiences and dreamy costars like Keanu Reeves, River Phoenix, Matthew Perry, John Cusack, and Robert Downey Jr. But like her sixties It Girl mom, Skye’s greatest weakness was musicians.

On the heels of a toxic relationship with the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ Anthony Kiedis, which began when she was just sixteen and he was twenty-four, the actress leapt into wedded bliss with her first great love, Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz.

But marriage was not the magical hall pass to adulthood Skye had imagined. Awakening to her bisexuality and desperately insecure, she risked her fairytale marriage for a string of affairs with gorgeous nineties “bad girls.” The dream marriage imploded, and Skye’s trust in herself and her future along with it.

Set against a backdrop of rock royalty compounds, supermodel cliques, and classic late-century films like River’s Edge, Gas Food Lodging, and Wayne’s World, Say Everything is a wild ride of Hollywood thrills as well as a lyrical reflection on ambition, intimacy, and a messy, sexy, unconventional life.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Biography, Biography Memoir, Autobiography, Music

Audible Audio

Published March 13, 2025

About the author

Ione Skye made her film debut opposite Keanu Reeves in River’s Edge, followed by her iconic role as Diane Court in Say Anything. Skye has appeared in other notable film and television projects including Zodiac, Wayne’s World, Fever Pitch, Arrested Development, Camping, Good Girls, Beef, and much more. In addition to acting, Skye is a painter who has exhibited and sold her work for twenty-five years. She is the author of the children’s book, My Yiddish Vacation, and cohost of the weekly podcast Weirder Together. Ione is the mother of two daughters and lives in Los Angeles with her husband, and collaborator, the musician Ben Lee.

source: Amazon

Reviews

[JaymeO · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I gave her my heart and she gave me a pen.” - Lloyd Dobler

Who remembers when John Cusack held up a boombox while In Your Eyes blasted from the speakers? 🙋‍♀️ I watched Say Anything on repeat and always melted at this iconic moment. The movie skyrocketed Ione Skye, the actress who played Diane Court, into ‘80’s royalty. Relatively unknown at the time, I was curious to find out more about her.

In Say Everything, Skye is unabashedly candid about her daddy issues, evolving sexual identity, and famous partners. The daughter of the folk legend Donovan and model Enid Karl, Skye dishes the tea on the Hollywood party scene. From hanging out at the Zappa’s house, to dating Anthony Kiedis, marrying a Beastie Boy, and sleeping with Matthew Perry, nothing is off limits. Her memoir is real, candid, and raw.

I listened to the audiobook which is read by the author. I really enjoyed this format and highly recommend it.

4/5 stars

[Angie Miale · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you are Gen X and like a good celebrity tell-all, you will want to add this one to your TBR. After all, Ione Skye was everywhere and everything in the late 80's. And Diane Court and Lloyd Dobler was "where my lore started."

Ione lists her collaborator, Genevieve Field, in her acknowledgments. Ms Field was a contributing editor at Glamour and her bio says that she does ghost writing. Based on the conversational yet insightful nature of this book, it is clear that she asks great questions and got Ione talking about what made the best material for the book. The memoir starts in her childhood and ends about 20 years ago, when her life became relatively stable. I do think that her experiences in motherhood would be worth reading about, but this book doesn't really talk about anything past 2005, except very briefly and in summary. Is it a cop-out to write a memoir and not say anything (lol) about the people currently in your life? Maybe. But who cares. I don't need to hear about her husband of the last 18 years, Ben Lee. I want to know all about Anthony Kiedis and Robert Downey Junior!! And did she ever hook up with John Cusack??? YES

I also give credit to Ione's therapist (whoever they are), because she clearly has done a lot of work around understanding herself and her life. She definitely acknowledges her part in her heartbreak and in her journey. There is a lot of sex, drugs, rok-n-roll, with absent famous fathers and complicated relationships. Say Anything accounts for about 15 pages in the book. Looking back at her life, she takes a lot of responsibility for her mistakes and has a healthy knowledge of what drove her to seek validation through relationships. All without being self-pitying, there are no villains in this story.

It was so interesting to be the "it girl" before the internet. Before TMZ and before paparazzi, etc. It just seems like on any random day she would go to a friend's house and meet Mick Jagger, River Phoenix or Matthew Perry. A nice jewish girl from the Hollywood hills, she and her brother and mother, who both were successful models, easily were able to make connections and move their careers forward. It seems like it happened almost effortlessly. There was a lot of pain, but bouncing back was easy and assumed. Ione doesn't need you to like her, and she doesn't want you to feel sorry for her. It seems like she is finally at a point in her life where she has made peace with her young life and can look back at it with a mature understanding. Ione doesn't have resentment or anger towards anyone in her life, she has forgiveness both for herself and others. Still, reading with our 2025 eyes there are things that made sense in 1985 that seem creepy or weird now.

Life is long. It has to be so weird to know that most people will always and only remember you as a teenager, right?

[Violet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Say Everything is a powerful and intimate look in Ione Skye's chilhood, long spanning professional Hollywood career, and the various friendships and relationships of her free spirited youth. I, like most anyone who grew up in the 80's, was obsessed with Say Anything and the phenomenon that was Diane Court + Lloyd Dobler. In this memoir Ione's quiet, shy persona is wiped away and we get a firsthand look at the woman behind the girlish doe eyes, soft lisp, and downturned smile.

From a very young age Skye explores modeling and acting, her sexuality, various tumultuous romances, and a relationship with the father, who by 17 years old she had still yet to meet. I appreciated the unapologetic openness and raw truths on every page. Drug use, abortion, cheating...nothing feels off limits. I do wish that we'd have got a bigger look into her life with her girls and Ben Lee. After so many ups and downs it was gratifying to see her gain her happily ever after, I'd have just loved to hear a bit more of that era.

I absolutely love a memoir and have read a wide variety of celeb's stories over the years. This one is so unique and easily earns all 5 stars!! I did a mix of audio & ebook. I loved to hear these stories told in the author's voice and also loved the photographs that helped to fully bring the story to life.

[Emilie Sommer · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you have ANY interest in 80s and 90s Hollywood, or 90s pop culture in general, this is your new favorite book. Ione was everywhere, Ione knew everyone, and Ione tells everything just as the title promises. She’s not just remarkably well-connected, though; she’s astoundingly honest. This is what celebrity memoirs ought to be. Bravo!

[Karen Ashley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Umm little bit cringe. I hope she continues working with her therapist. 3.5 stars

[Sian Lile-Pastore · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. Loved the writing and it has such a sweet energy to it.
Great to know/confirm that River Phoenix and Keanu Reeves were/are wonderful and that Anthony Kiedis was/is a dick.

[Jenna · Rating 5 out of 5]

If some of my first kisses were with Keanu Reeves, I would definitely write a memoir too. But, let’s face facts: I would not have been able to handle it. My brain would have broken, and the rest of my memoir would have been purple cursive scrawlings of “J. Reeves! Mrs. Keanu Reeves! J. + K. TLF!” etc. - and with all the exclamation points dotted with hearts.


Fortunately, this did not happen to Ione Skye! She survived Keanu’s kisses - as well as his courteous rejection of her amorous advances! - and went on to live an extremely full life nonetheless and to write an excellent and articulate book about it all!


Those who have seen some of her late 80s-90s films, especially Cameron Crowe’s still-wonderful Say Anything (also starring a terrific John Cusack as the kickboxing iconoclast Lloyd Dobler), will remember Ione as an ingenue whose mysterious beauty gave her an aura of unreality. (And her name! Only Fairuza Balk, her Gas, Food, Lodging co-star, could compare!)


It goes without saying that anyone who is a fan of the indie films, actors, personalities, music, fashion, and culture of this time period will probably enjoy this book. As other reviewers have described, it does what many people wish celebrity memoirs would do and discloses a LOT of candid detail about interactions and relationships with MANY famous people (in a respectfully straightforward way, I would say). And, Ione is certainly hardest of all on herself.


However, there are many other reasons to read, and enjoy, this book.


For one, if you’re interested in Hollywood/LA history, Ione (along with her actor-model-musician brother Donovan Leitch) grew up living about one of the most perfectly Hollywoody lives imaginable, hanging out with neighbors like the Jaggers and the Zappas and having their own home serve as a crash pad for all kinds of stars - for example, River Phoenix, who hated hotels. And there are so many interesting anecdotes - for example, since Gen-Xers didn’t have today’s tech, there are scenes where Ione and her pals just kinda cruise the Hollywood streets looking for the other famous people they were supposed to meet up with!


The book also explores an interesting sort of subculture of which Ione was a part: children of famous musicians and their former partners or wives (who, like Ione’s, were often models). It’s really interesting and poignant to see the different ways these extended family networks mesh - or don’t. Unfortunately, Ione’s own father (the Scottish folk-rock singer Donovan, of “Mellow Yellow” among other fame…) and stepmother wanted virtually nothing to do with Ione whatsoever until she was a young adult, and he even tried to disavow paternity until a test was ordered. Ione contrasts this with families like the Jaggers, where Mick (with the encouragement of his present and past partners) had his blended family in attendance at warm birthday celebrations and affectionately wanted to sit next to his kids at the movies.


But, I think the biggest reason to read this book is that it’s an incredible portrait of how abandonment issues can affect a person throughout their lives. Ione’s preoccupation with her father’s rejection (among other factors and experiences, of course) helps contribute to a people-pleasing, approval-seeking pattern of trying to make difficult people love her. She eventually becomes addicted to “the chase” and to the normalcy of chaos and drama - and to the extent that she is unable to remain at ease in relationships that are stable, reciprocal, and calm. Ione’s amazing honesty and authenticity in this memoir is so commendable, and although it’s painful at times to endure the laser-focused lens on some of her more challenging or self-sabotaging thinking and behavior, the book is a useful account of a growth process that would be interesting even if it were not that of a beautiful celebrity.


Ione does an absolutely fantastic job reading this audiobook, award-winning caliber, and her voice sounds interestingly like Keri Russell’s (another actor whose memoir I would happily read).


Finally, I just have to mention that due to my interest in this time period, I have read a number of firsthand accounts aside from this one that feature River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, and Adam Rauch (Ad-Rock) of the Beastie Boys, and by ALL accounts these are (or were) lovely humans both inside and out!

[Alyssa Savino · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay I had no idea Ione Skye was so cool? Bless her for seemingly being in every single room and telling us exactly what was going on in there, even when it didn't paint her in the best light. She's so real and honest and charming and I loved this!

[Erin · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 Stars!

"There's no shame in searching, scrambling, and aching for more; it may feel like failing, but it's just part of being alive."


I knew nothing about Ione Skye before picking up this book. I had heard of her because my big sister is a Gen Xer who loves the movie Say Anything. I've never seen that movie or anything else she's been in. But you guys know I love reading about people I don't know anything about.

Ione Skye is an 80s icon. She's to quote herself, "A nepo baby before nepo babies were a thing"(Her dad is 1960s rocker Donovan)she's had a big life. She was dating drug addicted adult rock stars ( Anthony Kiedis) at 15 years old. She married the love of her life( Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys) at 21 years old and....well, I'll let you read the book to learn how that went.

Ione Skye let's it all out. She doesn't try to make herself look better. In one of her relationships, she was the obvious villain. I like her. She's messy, and she isn't bitter even though there are some things she should be very bitter about.

I recommend this book to people who like reading about messy and interesting women.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-1/2 Stars!

First of all: Say Everything is the perfect title for Ione Skye's memoir. Because Say Everything she surely seems to do here. She does not seem to hold anything back. She not only admits to her faults but willingly shares them in great detail! Ione's apparent honesty is endearing as she shares her true life coming-of-age story surrounded by famous people and growing up alongside the children of other famous people. Her regret over her bad treatment of the love of her life is palpable and apparent. It's nice to hear how she worked with therapists and continues to grow as a person learning from her past mistakes.

Yes, I rewatched Say Anything after finishing this book and I loved it!

[Kathleen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitely listen to the audiobook narrated by Ione! I loved it.

[Bonnie G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this so much more than I expected. I read very few celebrity memoirs, but I am glad I made an exception. Ione is very interesting and very messy. She lets the reader see her neediness, pretension, self-destructiveness, recklessness, and selfishness. That is hard and scary, and I salute her. Of course she has grown, so there is a positive arc to this. I listened to the audio read by Ione herself, and I am happy I did.

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish it was about more than the men (and women) she and her mom slept with. Everything was tied to that.

[Sheila · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not finish this book. Way too much tmi, and name dropping.

[Jennifer McDonald Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siren song for the Gen X woman who lived one foot in the “good girl” past and one foot post feminist revolution. I identified with her needs and wants to be both. She really tells it all and I give her kudos for where she ended up. Highly recommend!!

[annalyse ⋆˙⟡♡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

ione, i love you so much. anthony kiedis, im going to KILL YOU

[Sara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ione Skye’s memoir is a raw, poetic, and deeply human reflection on a life lived in the surreal bubble of Hollywood and rock-and-roll royalty. With a rockstar father — folk legend Donovan — and a hippie model mother, Skye grew up in a world where fame and dysfunction intertwined seamlessly.

Her story unfolds like a time capsule of L.A. in the late ‘80s and ‘90s: River Phoenix, Flea, Anthony Kiedis, Gwyneth Paltrow, Madonna, Matthew Perry…she knew them, dated some, and moved through those layered social circles as casually as most of us walk through our local coffee shop. It’s both shocking and oddly unsurprising to witness the way proximity to fame shaped her world, a world where privilege and instability were constantly colliding.

But what makes this memoir stand out is not just the name-dropping (though, yes, it’s fascinating), it’s Skye’s voice. She writes with a sharp, introspective lens, unflinching in her honesty about her own struggles with self-doubt, identity, and the deep abandonment wounds carved early by her father’s absence and her complicated relationship with her mother. Dropping out of high school at sixteen and emancipating herself to pursue acting only deepened that sense of searching for belonging.

This is a memoir for readers who crave more than glossy celebrity anecdotes. It’s vulnerable, artistic, and layered, exploring addiction, love, creativity, and the constant push and pull between who we are and who we think we’re supposed to be.

Ione Skye is, above all, a storyteller, one who reminds us that even lives that seem charmed are often messier, more fragile, and far more human than they appear.

[Jennifer Knight · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars rounded up (but only because of all of the extraneous famous people tidbits that are good for a few days of interesting rabbit trails)

Maybe it’s me - I don’t typically enjoy a memoir that reads like someone’s diary with a few more details added. In general I much prefer a biography to a memoir or autobiography. This was essentially a timeline about every person she has ever kissed, slept with, or wanted to sleep with and sometimes she would backtrack and throw in people she slept with she forgot to tell you about a few chapters earlier. And sometimes the people her mom or her brother slept with, or the random people that came in and out of their house. If every single person in this book was not first degree or second-degree famous I would’ve stopped reading very early. I found her life incredibly sad. Her epilogue promises personal growth and a shift in her story unfortunately the book had no such arc. The book itself was like one long rambling diary entry and I’m not interested in someone’s sex life and how they constantly distract themselves from their pain. She was so wholly disconnected from her life; it wasn’t enjoyable to read a whole book written by someone who was so passive and clearly not dealing with the cognitive dissonance she was surrounded by. Just because her circle included other famous people doesn’t make her memories a good book. I still want a memoir to be a great book. Like Andre Agassi’s Open. With a storyline and an arc, and conflict, and resolution. I was left wondering what she wanted the reader to walk away with or maybe what a deeper point might have been other than she fell into a career in Hollywood and a life surrounded by famous people with no intention or purpose and didn’t mean to have a lot of affairs. I suppose the title is what the intention of the book was trying to be… that she’s now finally saying everything after living like a shell-shocked people-pleaser acting her way through her real life. But she never wrote about actually saying anything she thought to the people in her life - she’s just telling us her story and what she wished she could say to the people in her life or ask the people in her life. So is that really saying everything?

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ghost writers are very skilled at sucking you in with a first sentence. I loved the movie, “Say Anything,” so I was an easy target. Plus I grew up in L.A. in the 80s-90s and am about the same age as Ione, so there were a lot of relatable aspects to this book. Which is why I gave it 2 Stars. Why I ONLY gave it 2 Stars is because I found the lack of conscience, of morality, of love in Ione to be very disturbing. Why would someone go into such explicit details of what she did and who with, during her marriage? And it sounds as if her biggest hurdle was “learning to forgive myself.” (?!). How about having conviction that she was doing something wrong? Her biggest focus should have been seeking forgiveness from Adam! What a horrible example she has left for her children.

[Emily Spivey · Rating 5 out of 5]

terrific

This is a terrific read. Bravely honest writing. A gorgeous Gen X, sense memory, coming of age story. Congratulations Ione. ❤️

[Joshua Glasgow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Say Anything (1989) continuously vies with Atonement (2007) as my favorite movie of all time. Both are achingly human, beautifully written, and powerfully acted. When I learned that Ione Skye, star of the former film, had written a memoir, I was intrigued. I did not know much of Skye’s life or career beyond Say Anything but I expected the book would give at least part of its focus to the movie given that its title, SAY EVERYTHING, is clearly a play on the title of the movie. Unfortunately for me, very little of the book directly addresses her time making that movie. The majority of Skye’s memoir is instead about her troubled love life and the strained relationship she had with her biological father, folk singer Donovan.

Overall, the book does little to set itself apart from other celebrity memoirs: it is very traditionally structured, beginning with Skye’s early childhood and following her chronologically as she ages into adulthood. It’s meant to be “vulnerable” in that she tells personal stories about discovering her bisexuality and masturbation, then later speaks about many rocky romantic relationships she had, including acknowledging having sabotaged her marriage to Adam Horowitz of the Beastie Boys. Despite this, I still felt that Skye was presenting herself in a forgiving light. This is most visible in the resentful way she speaks about being cheated on by her then-boyfriend Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers (who she dated as a teen while he was an adult), only later admitting having done the same throughout all of her relationships (except, presumably, her current one) and presenting her cheating as a dysfunctional coping mechanism rather than a character flaw.

The main thing I got stuck on as I read the book is something that came up for me reading Emily Ratajkowski’s MY BODY as well. In Ratajkowski’s book, she talks about lounging by a pool at a posh resort:

While there, she laments that she couldn’t afford to be there if it weren’t for the job she was there to do—but she *is* there. No doubt everybody by that pool can think of some but-for as to why they wouldn’t be there, but they ARE. It really seems like Ratajkowski, no matter her level of fame or wealth, continues to think of herself as lower-middle class. This denial of privilege is a disease that affects many, but it’s especially glaring here as she, for example, praises a friend who comments on her wealth *without seeming jealous*!

Skye, too, despite living in Hollywood, palling around with famous musicians and movie stars, having a nanny and then later attending an exclusive private school as a child, appearing as a model in LA Weekly where she dressed in fancy clothing while “pressed against a Fabio lookalike”, and being personally sought out to play the lead in a movie, cannot help herself from trying to downplay her privilege. The most irksome example is when she described her mother driving a “faded two-tone station wagon”—oh, poor you! When she speaks about modeling in LA Weekly, it’s as though it was an annoyance she was roped into so the photographer, a friend of her mother’s, could get free labor. Late in the book she does something very similar to Ratajkowki above when she praises a date who picked her up in a car driven by a chauffeur because he sheepishly said that he doesn’t usually have a driver. She appreciated that his comment made him seem merely rich, rather than “douchey-rich”. My feeling, though, is that praising people for being “humble” about their wealth is itself evidence of being douchey-rich.

For the bulk of the book I honestly don’t have much comment. I did read the book in a weekend, which is faster than I’ve been reading books lately, though that’s not necessarily a commentary on how compelling it is. If you’re into celebrity name-dropping – if that gets your motor revving – then you will find a lot to like in this book. Skye unironically refers to herself as a “nepo baby before nepo babies were a thing” (they were always a thing, actually!) and because of this status she is surrounded by the rich and famous from a young age. She hangs around with Frank Zappa and fam, Mick Jagger and his daughter, Flea and the rest of RHCP, she’s friends with River Phoenix, feels motherly affection for Drew Barrymore, crushes on Keanu Reeves and Robert Downey, Jr., refers to John Cusack as “Johnny”, the list goes on. I don’t personally find the mere mention of celebrities a cause for excitement. And as I mentioned, the book is largely about her romantic relationships. I guess I should be more outraged that she was involved with Kiedis as a teenager; I guess I should be scandalized by the abortion she reveals having had which Kiedis paid but was not present for. I guess I should be shocked by the drug culture Skye grew up in or by how careless she was as a teen and young adult. I didn’t find any of this especially moving, by which I mean none of it affected me emotionally in any way whatsoever.

Again, the discussion of Say Anything is brief. I’m not exactly a memoir connoisseur but I’m reminded of COMEDY COMEDY COMEDY DRAMA by Bob Odenkirk, which similarly touches only briefly on ‘Breaking Bad’ and ‘Better Call Saul’, even though that’s likely the main draw of the book for many readers. That said, I was not previously aware that the cinematographer for Say Anything was László Kovács, who was also the cinematographer for Five Easy Pieces and, more important for me, Paper Moon—another film I love. It was also produced by Polly Platt, who was apparently married to director Peter Bogdanovich, and who also produced on Paper Moon, and who Skye claims may have been as much responsible for directing that movie as P.B. was. This is interesting! I’ve never considered whether there are any parallels between Say Anything and Paper Moon before, but I’ll be sure to have this in mind the next time I watch one or the other. Beyond this, there’s not a lot of inside knowledge Skye offers around the movie, save for some discussion about where the iconic boombox scene was filmed and about how Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes” was chosen for the moment. She does make it seem like Cusack misunderstood Lloyd Dobler a bit, in that he allegedly did not want Lloyd to tell Diane “I love you” in the infamous pen scene and wanted to play the character as defiant with arms crossed over his chest in the boombox scene instead of plaintive with the stereo above his head.

It's possible that the 3-star rating is too generous. I went for 3 stars, though, because my feeling on completing the book was that it was okay. Despite my irritation regarding Skye’s lack of ownership of her class status and my disappointment with the limited discussion of the movie, I had no strong negative feelings about the book anymore than I had strong positive feelings about it. I probably wouldn’t recommend it to others, though. So call this 2.5-stars, in the end, because I guess it leans more toward the lower end of the scale than the higher.

[Suzy Lorenc · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh. Too much celebrity name dropping and why write a book to tell the world how sl*tty you were.

[britta ⋆˙⟡ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simultaneously so vulnerable and relatable but juicy as well and filled with her very candid life experiences growing up in LA this was a page turner for sure.

[Jason Lee · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m a big Say Anything fan. Though I was never crazy about Skye’s other movies, I was always excited to spot her in a small role, or happy to see her doing her thing in lead roles on smaller projects. To be frank, she never seemed like an actor in total command of her craft, BUT… She was adorable. She seemed sweet and clever. Of COURSE, I was stoked to read this book! Not only would I get to learn about enigmatic Ione, I would get tidbits on ex-husband Adam Horovitz, co-star Crispin Glover, Cameron Crowe and others, right? As it turns out, sadly… Ione Skye is a shallow f’n a-hole. She’s also an unreliable narrator. She spends half the book making you believe she’s always been a real sweetheart, missing her father, taken advantage of by Hollywood and by older men, then reveals her true character. The title of this one should be SAY LESS. For example, maybe don’t publish the private text Matthew Perry sent you a few days before his death.
All Ione can tell you about her great “loves” are which other celebrities they remind her of, and exactly what they were wearing at any given time. Coincidentally, the only romantic interests she’s ever pursued happened to be famous. That’s excepting one dude who happened to be wealthier than all of them.
If you give this woman your heart, you’ll be lucky if she gives you a pen.

[Holly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a fantastic memoir. Ione doesn’t lightly gloss over moments in her life that were extremely important and self destructive and takes accountability for a lot of what when on. Which I appreciate in hate a memoir where it is always someone else’s fault about why things happened and I’m an amazing human. We are all flawed and messy with the potential to be great and this book represents that. I feel like Ione has more stories to tell and would love to hear more from her.

[Eve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Before we ‘80s kids fell in love with Ione Skye in ‘Say Anything,’ she had already lived a life that rather contrasted with the staid valedictorian Diane Court: Unacknowledged child of ’60 folk rocker Donovan (who left her mother before birth); ninth-grade dropout; heavy drug user (by this time, she had already used cocaine and tried heroin); and sexual adventurer, already living with Anthony Kiedis (24 to her 16) and attempting to save him through deference and unprotected sex despite his ongoing heroin addiction and scores of groupies. Her believability as the wide-eyed Diane walking through her first teen party is a testament to her acting skills.

If this reminds you a little of Moon Zappa’s memoir (minus the needles all over the house), it’s no coincidence: Skye hung out with the Zappas a lot. In fact, she ran with a crowd of rock star offspring, mostly being raised by single moms and/or with a revolving door of stepfathers. Skye comes to this in a breezy, matter-of-fact style. Not that it doesn’t make her story any less shocking—a photo of her and Kiedis in a topless embrace is haunting, as she looks younger than 16 and he older than 24—but it sure starts out readable. We know she’ll be all right, but the journey is bumpy, to say the least.

By 21, Skye has met her father (he’s as weird as I’d always imagined), left Kiedis (with a surprising lack of drama), and married Ad-Rock (who seems to be the sweetest guy ever). For what it’s worth, Kiedis was at the wedding and Donovan was not.

Despite wedded bliss, Skye realizes she jumped over the having fun part of youth. She parties. She hooks up with gal pals and models. She does even more drugs. Being wedded is no longer blissful. It’s hard not to be angry over how she treated her spouse—but to be fair, she never really had an example of what to do right. We watch in horror, waiting for the ending. She goes back to guys. She has a baby in an attempt to reverse-engineer (another) marriage. More guys. Then, she reconnects with an old platonic friend (Australian musician Ben Lee) and they marry. She gets therapy, THANK GOD, and lives long enough for her young adult daughters to point out how fucked up her youth (*AHEMAnthonyKiedis*) had been. At last, she gets it. (I would have loved to have read a lot more of this than about RDJ’s boner.) She even gets to have a good-enough relationship with her father after some 50 years of mostly estrangement.

As much as I love a good kiss-and-tell memoir, this became a bit too much. I came away from it realizing anew how damaging an unstable childhood can be. Thanks, Donovan.

[Micaela · Rating 5 out of 5]

My childhood obsession with Anthony Kiedis led me to Ione Skye when I was so very young—only nine years old. I saw the picture of Ione embracing Anthony in his memoir and swore that she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I tore that glossy photograph out of the book and kept it in a shoebox (I may still be able to find it, all these years later). I’ve kept up with Ione’s creative, quirky, unconventional life through the years via instagram, collecting screenshots of the captions she would occasionally fill with short blurbs of gripping tales. This memoir is such a treat. It’s not soppy, Ione is honest, possibly to a fault, and incredibly horny. And I still maintain that Ione Skye is the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.

[Jeanine Waldron · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend said it reads like a very long People magazine article and she's right. But it was totally fun and and great for we 1980s teens

[Adam Messinger · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had no idea who Ione Skye was before this book came across my desk. In theory i knew about the girl on the receiving end of the guy with the boombox in Say Anything, but I'm more of a Breakfast Club guy at heart. Even the name Say Everything felt like clutching at some past idea of yourself. But after finishing the book (and assisting her with a few promo events for this memoir) I am obsessed with Ione Skye.

She is so much more than Say Anything. This book transcends the boundaries of an entertainment memoir and instead tells a story of LA and the 80s and the 90s. At once an Eve Babitz style groupie and a Joan Didion observer of the culture, Ione Skye was THERE.

At times juicy and revealing of the human condition, Ione Skye truly says EVERYTHING (except the size of her rock star exes’ dicks—i do need to know this info). She never victimizes herself or is too sentimental about her past—it’s all killer no filler.

Also i watched Say Anything and wasn’t impressed but she certainly has ITTTT.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been an Ione fan for years and was thrilled when I learned she was writing this memoir. What a trip down memory lane for Gen X women who grew up loving indie films and alternative music. Although my life has hardly been anything like Ione’s I found her to be highly relatable and genuine. She gives intimate details about her wild ride of a life while offering insight into how she grew from a teenager who jumped from one big adventure or relationship to the next without processing her feelings and while trying to please everyone, into the confident and wise artist, mother and wife she is today. Highly recommend. I had trouble putting it down!