The Rainbow Comes and Goes audiobook

5 Stars! This book will forever hold a special place in my heart! I initially purchased "The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss" because years ago I learned that Anderson had lost his father when he was 10 years old and his brother committed suicide when he was 21. Having lost my father suddenly at 12 and having lost an ex-boyfriend to suicide I always felt a connection. I wanted to know more. Not only does this book tell more about Anderson but it tells the story of his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt. Except for wearing her jeans, I knew little about Gloria, but boy what a life she has had!This book was created through an exchange of emails between Anderson and Gloria right after she had recovered from a bout of pneumonia at the age of 91. It's the story of their lives. They both share so many rare and candid moments. Anderson talks about how losing a parent at a young age changes your life forever, and that anything can happen and that nothing in life is safe anymore. That's exactly how my life was after my father's passing. I found immense validation in what Anderson had to say. I listened to the audio version of this book. I highly recommend this version because Gloria became emotional several times making her story that much more sympathetic and genuine. I absolutely loved her! I cried for her when her first husband called her fat and beat her and I cried for her when her last husband, Wyatt Cooper, passed away. Come to think of it I cried for her through most of the book. If you are emotional like me, make sure you have plenty of Kleenex with you! Highly highly recommended!!!

An ongoing e-mail conversation between a mother and her son to get to know each other better when she’s in her early 90’s, is the basis for this book and as you might suspect it’s an intimate look, and certainly interesting. In this case made much more interesting because the mother is the famed Gloria Vanderbilt and the son, Anderson Cooper, a recognized anchor and reporter for CNN. It’s mostly Gloria’s story, and as I listened to the audiobook, it many times felt like Anderson was interviewing her, yet there were so many poignant moments when they each talked about how they felt about each other, their regrets and so much more. I have to admit I wanted to know more about Anderson. I’m an avid viewer of his nightly hour on CNN. He's a skilled interviewer and I’m always touched by the sensitivity he shows to families of survivors of mass shootings and those affected by natural disasters when he is reporting on the scene. I especially remember when he reported from Sandy Hook and from New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.I’m of the age when I was a young girl, I just had to have those Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. I knew the Vanderbilts were a family of prestige and wealth, but I really knew nothing about her life. What a sad mixed up life she had as a child, moving around and then a public custody battle for her when she was ten years old between her mother and her aunt. She talks about her bad first marriage, her multiple marriages, the famous people in her life, the varied things she does - actress, designer, artist. Her privileged, well to do life wasn’t always a happy one. I was moved to hear them speak of the effect on both of them of the loss of Gloria’s husband and Anderson’s father and then her son and Anderson’s brother to suicide. Their exchanges felt so honest when he talks about when he came out to her, about their religious beliefs and how they feel about each other. What a gift these correspondences were to each other. Gloria Vanderbilt passed away this year and I still remember the loving tribute that Anderson Cooper gave about his mother when he returned to the air after her funeral. Definitely recommended and the audio is the way to go with this one. Hearing them read their own parts of the book make its so much more meaningful.

A Shark and A Tight Rope...... .......Anderson Cooper and his 91 year old mother, Gloria Vanderbilt are both wonderful storytellers!!!!!!Two famous people: mother and son...have a personal conversation....taken from a year long e-mail exchange. Anderson asks questions about his mother's childhood - she gives intimate answers. I listened to the audiobook. Gloria shares about being a little girl, growing up with no men in her life- without a father. She shares about her troubled relationship with her 'beautiful' mother...but distant mother. Gloria shares about her reckless teen years in Hollywood, dating, marriages, pregnancies, travel, art, theater, movies, acting, motherhood, fashions, ( her famous designer jeans), other designs, body images comments on beauty, thoughts about her son being gay, loss, and death, suicide, friendships, personal growth, and love.Gloria shared about her dreams & fantasies she had about men when she was a young maiden---wishing they would take care of her --- she hoped an older man would rescue her-- she had romantic thoughts about men and love which were like a fairytale. When she said her role models were actors in the movies...it made me realize how much TV and movies are influencing our young people still today. With A high divorce rate today, or no marriages at all...I begin to wonder about the fantasies of our youth today in the area of romantic - and long lasting love.As a growing girl - Gloria "went with the flow"... Her dream was to get married, wear an apron, have a man love her and serve him. She never made any plans - she was always too impulsive. She admits this impulsiveness as a fault- yet on the flip side she knows she has been a woman who thrived on chaos. She admires her own flaws - yet is aware they 'are' flaws. I personally thought it was pretty cool to listen to this 91 year old woman share so candid. She 'seems' ageless - alert - fully present! Anderson is the opposite of impulsive he says. He has 'always' - even as a boy- planned far into the future - he not only planned his future- but started planning his mother's when he himself was in his early 30's....thinking about how he would care for her when she aged. His father's death was a major loss in his life...( his strength)....it's as though he slowly stepped into his father's 'take-charge' shoes very young.Gloria shares about her insecurities as a young girl-- ( which made her feel insecure as a young mother as well - it was her husband who gradually taught her the value of their family). Gloria says she wasn't aware she had choices - "without plans, she had dreams". She inherited 4.5 million dollars when she turned 21 years of age....yet nobody taught her how to how to manage it.She did have her own drive and work ethics - she wanted to work hard and create. The money Gloria received from her own work was the only money she respected. The money she inherited never felt like it was hers. She never wanted to be called a "Poor Little Rich Girl"....( something she heard somebody say when she was a child). Those words hurt and stayed with her a lifetime - and she fought against it. Impatience is Gloria's biggest weakness she says. She is 'still' working on trying not to respond on her quick impulsiveness. She recognizes how exhausting it is for others around her.It's funny to me that at age 91 .... she is still needing to be advised to SLOW DOWN! I laughed- when she told Anderson -she was feeling and impulsive again and thinking about moving into a new apt. She loves to rearrange furniture and decorate....she gets bored once it's done. Her son laughed ..."MOM, you are almost 92 years of age". I laughed too!Gloria shares about her flaws - gaining wisdom with aging - she's honest about regrets in her life-and guilt. It's quite remarkable how open Gloria was. She even shared about her experience with LSD. ( under a doctors supervision...but it changed her life). At age 91, Gloria has discovered the type of happiness she 'had' been looking for most of her life - doesn't exist. ---This wisdom gives her peace today. She is also thankful for her restless spirit. It's who she is! She's thankful for her fire of passion!HECK, I NEEDED A NAP AFTER GLORIA'S 91 years of ENERGY!!!Enjoyable and touching..... .........inspiring 'Mother/Son' treasured experienced! It was a privileged to listen to Anderson and Vanderbilt --"Shark and Tight Rope".....love-communicating together!

3.5 stars. The Rainbow Comes and Goes was a bit of a mixed bag for me, but on balance a positive experience. There were some real strengths, and then there were parts that were a bit tedious. I knew very little about Gloria Vanderbilt and Anderson Cooper before I started listening to the audio book. As far as I knew, Gloria Vanderbilt was the brand name of jeans coveted by many of my friends in my late teenage years (determined to be a contrarian, I found them tacky). And Anderson Cooper is that CNN guy with the crazy blue eyes. It turns out that Gloria is Anderson’s mother, and together and separately they have had pretty interesting life journeys. The Rainbow Comes And Goes, is told through alternating emails between 91 year old Gloria and almost 50 year old Anderson. Gloria recounts her unusual difficult childhood – which it turns out involved a notorious custody battle between her mother and her aunt – and she dwells on the challenges of being a mother when she had no experience of being mothered or having a stable family. Anderson focuses on explaining what it was like to grow up with Gloria in the shadow of his father’s early death and his brother’s suicide. The exchange is a reckoning of sorts, and also an attempt to figure out how mother and son are similar and different, and what core values they strive to live by. For me, the strengths are each narrators’ perspective on their respective childhoods and early years, and their honesty about their perceived failings, the cost of their losses and their mutual love and respect. Gloria’s last letter and Anderson’s epilogue are especially moving. The weaknesses are that at times the narrative feels like it loses its thread – there is some repetition, some loss of chronology and some dwelling on details or events that don’t add much – including a bit too much name dropping by Gloria. In the end, it’s a bit of a message book, but these are good messages like the invitation to have difficult conversations with older relatives before it’s too late, the importance of respecting each other despite deep differences in temperament and perspective, and the message embedded in the title about appreciating good things while they last.A note on the audio: I loved Gloria’s voice. Anderson’s voice sometimes felt a bit flat, especially given the emotional content of what he was reading. Nevertheless, it’s worth listening to the audio to hear them tell their stories in their own voices.

"The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love and Loss" by Anderson Cooper & Gloria Vanderbilt was a surprisingly touching read!This audiobook was a narration by Anderson Cooper and his mother, Gloria Vanderbilt of the emails sent to one another over a one year period to focus on developing a closer relationship after drifting apart over the years. Anderson spoke about how important it was for him to make his own way in life. Because of this Anderson admits early in the book he didn't want people to know he was Gloria Vanderbilt's son. He purposely didn't know much about his mother's past and admits to searching the internet to read, for the first time, about the infamous court custody case between Gloria's mother and Aunt Gertrude. Gloria never spoke of this to Anderson or anything really about her past. Now Anderson has questions, lots of them. And, thus begins Gloria's answers to his many questions via email narrated in snippets through this book. I was fascinated by Gloria's animated answers and how open she was to her son about everything in her past. She was an heiress & socialite, an artist & writer, a designer & entrepreneur, a model & actor. She survived an abusive marriage, a marriage to a husband who lied about his past, the heartbreak of the unexpected early death of Anderson's father and witnessed the suicide of Anderson's brother, Carter. The fact that Gloria referred to Anderson as, "Andy" was touching to me, and as a mother it made me smile. It made their relationship seem more tender & personal, more mother-son like as I continued reading this book. Anderson refers to his father as, "Daddy", making the reader realize how young he was when his father died, becoming suddenly fatherless at 10 years old.Anderson and Gloria open up to each other about their perceptions of one another. They compare how alike they are in some respect and how different they are in other ways. They agree and they disagree, always with a reason why, with kindness and honesty, Gloria often showing humor in her responses to Anderson's straight-man replies. "The Rainbow Comes and Goes" is simply a story told with deep love and compassion between a mother and son taking the time to reconnect as a family.

An honest story of Gloria Vanderbilt and her her son Anderson Cooper .Gloria had an unusual childhood, being separated from her mother and being close to her governess and nanny. Her mother was too busy having fun and traveling to pay any attention to Gloria.When Gloria had her children she vowed to be a part of their lives and enjoy motherhood.Part of the book Anderson tells of his feelings of not remembering his father Wyatt Cooper, and the death of his brother Carter.At ninety two Gloria and Anderson are very close.

Like most young girls, I had the a pair of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, but admit that I was much more familiar with her son, Anderson Cooper, so it was interesting to hear about her life. In “The Rainbow Comes And Goes,” Anderson asks most of the questions so we learn much more about Gloria - the custody battle of her childhood, the early loss of her father, an aloof mother that left her rudderless as a young teen, and several lovers and marriages. We learn of the similarities between mother and son - they both lost loved ones: Gloria never knew her father, and lost her husband and son. Anderson lost his father at age 10 and brother to suicide when he was in college.Both have a strong work ethic, wealth or not, they both have a “rage to live” that propels them forward. Anderson likens himself to a shark, always advancing to force the air through his gills, worrying about becoming complacent.But we also see their differences. Anderson is a planner, saving for a rainy day while Gloria is more impetuous saying "chaos is my natural habitat."She’s an incurable hopeful, knowing the rainbow is out there and will always return. Anderson is more measured. He can’t be certain the rainbow will return, and for such a successful man, it’s interesting to see that he never rests on his laurels.In the prologue, Anderson states that the past year was the most valuable of his life, in that he had the opportunity to really get to know his mother. Through their exchange, he will have no regrets, nothing left unsaid. He states that it's never too late to change a relationship and that I must say is the best lesson from this book.

Hm... I am not sure what to say about this book. For me, Gloria Vanderbilt evokes mixed feelings - I really admired what she was able to make of herself growing up under such dire circumstances. But I also wonder who could regard as a normal thing the fact that two months after the death of her deeply beloved husband she's back with her former husband, whom she left after suddenly falling in love with another man. Nevertheless, it's not my place to judge her, or anyone else's obviously. What I gained from this book was hope. Hope that however your childhood might have been, it's up to you to make your life worth living. That it's never too late to make the best of your stay here on earth. That it doesn't matter whether you are a hopeless romantic or a dry pragmatist, you can achieve whatever you wish, as long as you truly put your mind to it. It's kind of heartening that in the end, people are really equal, and wealth is no guarantee that you'll grow up a normal person, with parents who care and love you. The most valuable lesson from this book, for me personally, is that it's never too late to forgive yourself and to accept the past for what it is - past.