The Woman in Me by. Britney Spears | Book Review

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: The Woman in Me

Author: Britney Spears

Format: ebook (own)

Pages: 288

Publication Date: 10/25/23

Categories: Nonfiction, Memoir, Music, Pop Culture

The Woman in Me is a brave and astonishingly moving story about freedom, fame, motherhood, survival, faith, and hope.

In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.

Written with remarkable candor and humor, Spears’s groundbreaking book illuminates the enduring power of music and love—and the importance of a woman telling her own story, on her own terms, at last.

Content Warning: postpartum depression, underage drinking, alcoholism

I don’t read a lot of memoirs even though I always plan to add it to my TBR list. I’ll read one here and there but I HAD to get this one because I love Britney. I was in college when she blew up in the music industry and my little girl cousins were obsessed with her because of Baby One More Time. And she was so awesome to hold a Free concert here in Hawaii (and back then it was hard to get any big musicians to do concerts here in Hawaii!!!) – I never went but I remember my cousin’s wives brought their little girls and they were so excited and happy about it. I wish I did go now because who holds free concerts now? Not in this economy of overpriced tickets. But Britney held a free concert in Hawaii on the beach and it was made into a DVD. I wasn’t obsessed but I loved her music, especially her next albums where there was more tracks I could dance to. And from there I just loved her music, her videos, and her performances – she was the moment! Until everything imploded and now we get HER side of the story and it’s so long overdue.

+ I love how she gives us a glimpse into her childhood which she experienced with an alcoholic father and a mother that fought with him a lot. It’s only a quick glance into her early years, memories here and there about growing up in Kentwood, Louisiana.

I wanted to hide, but I also wanted to be seen. Both things could be true.”
Britney Spears – The Woman in Me

I’ve heard that this sometimes happens to parents – especially if you have trauma from your childhood. When your kids get to be the age you were when you were dealing with something rough, you live it emotionally.”
Britney Spears – The Woman in Me

+ Her relationships with the various men in her life really didn’t turn out the best and I think it’s because of her already traumatic childhood didn’t give her a good idea about what a good, stable relationship is like. With the whole Justin thing – I loved them together and was sad when they broke up. And it got messy in the tabloids and in the media. She was tarnished and labeled a bad woman because of the breakup and they were so YOUNG They were 17 and 18? My goodness it reminded me of me and my ex high school boyfriend and how we ended and I got labeled a slut when I wasn’t even sleeping around with anyone but they believed HIM. Like why does that happen? 🙄 And then came K. Fed. 😡 This girl wanted to be loved and he was that rock for her at first until he chased the fame too. She did skim over when she dated “the photographer” as she calls him – kind of wanted to know more about that but I’m sure that was a rough time in her memory.

That interview was a breaking point for me internally – a switch had been flipped. I felt something dark come over my body. I felt myself turning, almost like a werewolf, into a Bad Person.”
Britney Spears – The Woman in Me

+ She explains some of the images we saw on tabloids and on the news – the moment the police show up to her house and take her on a gurney into the ambulance or the moment the pictures of her almost falling with her baby in her arms when the heel of her show twists…stuff like that. And again…they were like sharks after her! And why her, is what I ask…why did they want to tear her apart so badly?! I was flabbergasted how clearly she was going through postpartum depression (only now I understand because I’ve had 2 kids)…but she was suffering and there was no one there to help her with that at all or even diagnose her with PPD? I can only imagine what she was going through. I remember when everything was happening in the media, I really thought she was going to end up in an overdose like how most troubled celebrities end up and I was scared for her.

It felt like that was the only thing people wanted to tall about: whether or not I was a fit mother.”
Britney Spears – The Woman inMe

+ The moment she talks about the conservatorship and the role her father takes – I feel her anger and the betrayal in her words. I am so angry FOR her. No one was in her corner. And she went along with everything for her babies. 😭💔 I understand that when she was having a mental break, probably because of the PPD, the conservatorship helped her get back on her feet. But now we get to hear her thoughts about how she felt during that 13 year period. I ask the same questions she is asking…how can someone be in a conservatorship – but be worked to the bone, performing, touring, being out in public and paying everyone’s bills…how can they deem her unfit to be her own person yet milked for the money she could make them? When she talks about the nurse showing her the #freebritney movement on the internet…I felt like I was watching a movie and that was the moment everything turned around for her!

This is too much for me. But I didn’t see a way out. So I felt my spirit retreat, and I went on autopilot. If I play along, surely they’ll see how good I am and they will let me go.”
Britney Spears – The Woman in Me

+~ Is it well written? I’d say not particularly because I’m such an avid reader – but I’m also used to the way she writes captions on her Instagram account! So I feel like this is authentic to her voice and the way she talks. Even the speech she made in court kind of sounds like this book where her sentences rush into one another. Some of her timeline in the beginning felt like she was jumping between childhood memories, kind of skimming over some memories but if someone asked me for details about my childhood it wouldn’t be fully detailed either. But her writing does get better and smoother when she writes about her adult years. I can only imagine how hard it was for her to put what she went through down on paper – I can feel the pain and so much anger in her words.

My Final Thoughts:

There is so much I want to say but overall it’s a good read especially if you are a Britney fan like me. It’s full of details I never knew and just full of her emotions and I am angry and heartbroken for her. Britney is 41 years old which is 4 years younger than me and wow….her life story just hits me because I remember living in this Britney era. It just makes no sense to me that she was labeled the “unfit mother” but she was so unfit that she WORKED her ass off and paid everyone’s bills while she was “unfit”?! That bugs me a lot. So the “help” they gave her was to work her harder and push her to the brink? Like she said she was a people pleaser and she’s learning to now say no, thank goodness. That’s totally relatable because it’s a hard lesson to learn (from a fellow people pleaser). Sometimes you give so much that there is nothing else to give because you are empty.

I hope she makes a movie about her life because it would be so good. It’s an inspirational story. But on the other hand, she owes us nothing else because she gave us so much of herself and I’m grateful for that. I still work out to her music and my kids love Oops I did it again, Toxic and Lucky. I just hope she continues to do what she wants with her freedom and have more therapy to help HEAL all her mental trauma and wounds. 🙏🏼 😔 I got a new appreciate for her strength as a woman and a mother after reading this book – she really held on for her kids and I can relate to that!

Book Links:

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

BLOG TOUR} Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by. Cheryl Diamond | ARC Review

Welcome to the blog tour for Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood by. Cheryl Diamond!

“A riveting tale of trauma and resilience.”

—People Magazine

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

Title: Nowhere Girl: A Memoir of a Fugitive Childhood

Author: Kate Bromley

Format: Paperback

Pages: 320

Publication Date: 6/14/22

Publisher: Algonquin Books

Categories: Memoir

Disclaimer: **I received this book free from Algonquin Books in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.**

Thank you to Algonquin Books for giving me a chance to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review!

Cheryl Diamond had an outlaw childhood beyond the imaginings of most. By age nine, she had lived in more than a dozen countries on five continents and had assumed six identities as her parents evaded Interpol and other law enforcement agencies. While her family lived on the run, she would learn math on an abacus, train as an Olympic hopeful, practice Sikhism and then celebrate her bat mitzvah, come to terms with the disappearance of her brother, become a successful fashion model, and ultimately watch her unconventional yet close-knit family implode. Diamond’s unforgettable memoir, NOWHERE GIRL: A MEMOIR OF A FUGITIVE CHILDHOOD (Available in Paperback: June 14, 2022; $16.95), is a harrowing, clear-sighted, and surprisingly humor-filled testament to a childhood lost and an adulthood found. With its page-turning candor about forged passports and midnights escapes, this is, in the end, the searing story of how lies can destroy a family and how truth can set us free.

Diamond, whose acclaimed first book, Model: A Memoir, earned her accolades as “America’s next top author” in The New York Times Style Magazine, begins her story with her earliest memories as a four-year-old in India. Even at that tender age she had been schooled by her complicated and controlling father to never make a mistake, never betray the family, and never become attached to a place or other people. As the family continent-hopped, switched religions, paid for everything in cash, assumed new names time and again—always one step ahead of the law—young Cheryl (then called Bhajan) developed the burning need to achieve and win approval. By twenty-three she had seen so much of the world, but only through a peculiar lens that had somehow become normal. And she was plagued by fundamental questions: Who am I? And how can I find the courage to break away from the people I love most – because escaping is the only way to survive.

Content Warning: all kinds of abuse, illness, sexual harassment, incest

I haven’t read a memoir in awhile but I found the premise of this story very intriguing. When I was reading Cheryl/Bhajan’s story I for one was amazed that she could remember so far back into her childhood and with so much detail. I don’t remember anything at age 4! But her childhood is unique, scary, and quite traumatic.

I found it to be a very quick read, especially in her early years because she and her family were on the run and traveled so much, barely setting roots anywhere – their whole life was one of multiple identities, loads of lies and I can’t imagine how they even kept it up. Of course eventually things fell apart.

A lot of the chapters end abruptly but I think that works for the most part because their life was always changing but by the end I felt like the story like chapters of her life, were fleeting. Like as a reader, I never got to put down roots into the story also, with her life in her 20’s really felt like it sped by quickly. There was modeling, then Cheryl seeing her dad for what he truly was and suffering from Crohn’s disease but it all seemed so rushed.

I can’t imagine the abuse all of them went through trying to please their father. And what kind of upbringing is that for children? I felt horrible for Cheryl and her siblings. Their whole family was so toxic. All her life it seems she was trapped – it was nice to see there was a happy ending and healing.

Why you should read it:

a family on the run – pretty wild story
to see how it ends and if they get caught
Cheryl’s determination to heal from her traumatic childhood

Why you might not want to read it:

it’s a quick read but a lot of the chapters also feel rushed and abrupt – there were times I wondered how true these details were, especially when she was young
her father is a horrible man

My Thoughts:

Overall, I found this memoir pretty entertaining but also scary and sad. I don’t wish that kind of lifestyle on any child and it was just sad to read about what she went through – even if she had happy memories, there were so many scary ones that she had to internalize all her childhood. I’m glad she came out of the experience alive and learning how to heal with therapy, and knowing who to cut from her life.

📚 ~ Yolanda

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Cheryl Diamond is now a citizen of Luxembourg and lives between there and Rome. Her behind-the-scenes account of life as a teenage model, Model: A Memoir, was published in 2008. Diamond´s second book, Naked Rome, reveals the Eternal City through the eyes of its most fascinating people.

“A shocking rollercoaster ride of a story that shares secrets of life on the run but also asks big questions about what family means and who we truly are, no matter what the name on a passport might say.”

—Town & Country

“Within the autobiographical subset of children-overcoming-adversity that was defined by Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle (2005) and Tara Westover’s Educated (2018), Diamond’s tale might just be the most mind-blowing of them all.”

—Booklist, Starred Review

“Like Tara Westover’s Educated, Cheryl Diamond’s memoir tells the harrowing story of how crippling a childhood can be under the despotic narcissistic rule of a controlling father….”

—New York Journal of Books

Open Book by. Jessica Simpson, Kevin Carr O’Leary | Book Review

My Rating: 3.5/5 Stars

Title: Open Book

Author: Jessica Simpson, Kevin Carr O’Leary

Format: eBook (Overdrive Library)

Pages: 416

Publication Date: 2/4/20

Publisher: Hey Street Books

Categories: Memoir, Autobiography, Celebrity, Addiction

Jessica tells of growing up in 1980s Texas where she was sexually abused by the daughter of a family friend, and of unsuccessfully auditioning for the Mickey Mouse Club at age 13 with Justin Timberlake and Ryan Gosling before going on to sign a record deal with Columbia and marrying 98 Degrees member Nick Lachey.

Along the way, she details the struggles in her life, such as the pressure to support her family as a teenager, divorcing Lachey, enduring what she describes as an emotionally abusive relationship with musician John Mayer, being body-shamed in an overly appearance-centered industry, and going through bouts of heavy drinking. But Simpson ends on a positive note, discussing her billion-dollar apparel line and marriage with professional football star Eric Johnson, with whom she has three children.

Just some background – I was in college when Britney, Christina, Mandy More and Jessica Simpson were taking over the airwaves. So my interest in this book is definitely part curiosity and nostalgia. She may not be putting out music anymore like back in the early 2000’s but it’s hard not to see her brand at like Ross Dress for Less haha – I’m wearing Jessica Simpson house slippers right now as I’m typing this. And I didn’t buy it for the brand, but it was comfy and super affordable.
Jessica’s childhood story is eye opening. She is definitely a preacher’s daughter because faith is a big thing throughout all her ups and downs in the book. But so many things happened in her life that started a domino effect and would culminate into her drinking to cope.
A lot of the book is about her relationships since she was in the media a lot because of them. First her marriage to Nick Lachey, then dating John Mayer and Tony Romo. I definitely related to her on some of the challenges she went through in the relationships whether it was about marriage, bad communication or just all the drama comes with “falling in love”. I also found her self worth struggles relatable not only when she was in some of these bad relationships but also when she became a mother of two back to back and not knowing who you are anymore.
I applaud her for her honesty on the relationships, the coping mechanisms, the struggle to survive in an industry that never appreciates you for yourself but always wants to you to be something else.

Triggers: sexual abuse, divorce, alcoholism, addiction

Obviously her life is not about her love life but most of this book is like all the gossip you wanted to know about her marriages and ex-boyfriends. I enjoyed it of course but I think I liked knowing about her brand business as much, we get a little of it and I found that fascinating.

I don’t read a lot of memoirs but I picked this up because I grew up in my late teens and twenties with Jessica Simpson all over the radio and mtv. And a few years ago I remember seeing those clips of Jessica on Home Shopping Network acting strange and now looking back, it was because she was an alcoholic. I wondered what had happened to her and now we know what did. I appreciate her honesty in everything she decided to share in this book from the sexual abuse, her failed relationships, and the good things like her doing concerts for the troops fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq, finding the love of her life and having her three beautiful children. She has a good heart and I’m glad she’s around to share her story.

📚~ Yolanda