“Since I was a little girl, I believed I was a child of destiny, and if that is true, Richard Burton was surely my fate.” – Elizabeth Taylor

I’ve never been the voyeuristic type. The “Royal Wedding” fever during the last few months was almost an annoyance, and I wouldn’t be upset if in a fell swoop all reality TV shows were cancelled. But I read “Furious Love: Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the Marriage of the Century” recently, and fell in love with it. After spending two weeks with a copy from the Fayetteville Public Library, I went and bought my own.

I’ve always enjoyed classic Hollywood movies, but Taylor was never one of my favorites. So when I picked started the book I knew little about her– even less about Burton. Authors Sam Kashner and Nancy Schoenberger connect the details of Taylor and Burton’s childhoods, and explain how it shaped their individual lives and their marriage. They discuss how Burton’s having an official and unofficial father influenced how he viewed himself, how the early control Taylor received from the studio and her mother affected the rest of her marriages.

But it is not the writing that carries the novel, but the personalities and  interactions of Taylor and Burton; to put it simply, they are electric and larger than life. Their affair was condemned by the Vatican. The book is extremely personal and indulgent, some of Burton’s diary entries and letters to Taylor were included.  It is easy to forget the Burton-Taylor marriage is synonymous with tumultuous relationships.

The authors are at times too fair with Taylor. Despite the complexity of her mutual obsession with Burton, on multiple instances they paint wanting to be a good wife as the sole motivation to Taylor’s actions. Doing so humanizes, but simplifies the actress. But at the same time they don’t shy away from some of the couple’s problems including Burton’s alleged affairs and alcoholism.

The book is perhaps, more than anything else, a warning about the effects of the modern paparazzi, celebrity obsession and a window into what happens when celebrities’ public personalities overtake their private lives.