Extremely sad and depressing book that is raw in its honesty but fails to provide a full picture of her life. After a horrible upbringing with a famouExtremely sad and depressing book that is raw in its honesty but fails to provide a full picture of her life. After a horrible upbringing with a famous dad that ignored her to sleep with strange women around the world, and an evil jealous mother who went to her grave cutting the daughter out of the Zappa family fortune, Moon has a right to all the emotions she gives voice to in this book.
The problem is that after very detailed specifics about her horrible parents and spoiled siblings, she rushes through the last ten years of her life in just a handful of pages, never really fully condemning her mom and dad. She instead shows "empathy" to those that traumatized her and even reaches out to her terrible brothers and sister to offer "forgiveness" (they don't respond). She misses the importance of righteousness, justice, and morality. That's because her philosophy of life was influenced by her wacky hippie-like father and witchy mother. And a fraudulent swami she starts following that dictates her life decisions, only to discover that the female spiritual leader is a total fraud.
It was a good chance to reflect on the misuse of empathy in society and the damage that has come from both the fake New Age spiritual movement and the rock-music-influenced "free love" movement. "Empaths" can be very dangerous in their support of immorality, evildoers, criminals, and fallen leaders while ignoring the victims. Empath Moon should not defend her abusive parents just to make herself feel less guilty. Hatred and disassociating yourself from your family can be a valid reaction instead of tolerating abuse.
In the most significant storyline, Moon took the savings she had from her music and VH-1 work to buy her own house to finally move out of her parents' home (why in the world did she wait so long?). Yet while her dad was dying her mom begged Moon to sell the house and give mom the funds to pay off dad's medical bills (since they didn't believe in basics like health insurance, of course!). Moon, of course, tried to earn her parents' love by giving in. Never repaid, after Frank passed away the mom went on a spending spree, going deep into debt, then called the family together with a bunch of lawyers to pressure the kids to give up their untouchable beneficiary portions of Frank's music. When Moon comes up with a very sound compromise, the mother cuts her off and the author ends up with almost nothing...then two of the siblings sue her for the rest.
They were all in the wrong but Frank and his wife were the ones to blame, so instead of trying to apologize to them again (for no apparent reason), Moon should let their bad legacy stand so they can pay for all the evil they did in the world (while claiming to only be doing good and supporting very liberal causes to the tune of donating six figures to one California Democrat!). While their children went starving for basic necessities and parental involvement, those two adults wasted their time in recording studios, other people's beds, and publicly polishing their images by fronting liberalism. Degenerate hypocrites.
This is the poster family for how NOT to raise your kids (rule-free, sleeping around, psychologically abusing kids and treating some as favorites while ignoring others). Moon hungers for affection, boundaries, attention, and some sense of order--and she gets nothing that she needs. It's a condemnation of a California lifestyle, the music industry, celebrity parents, those devoted to following witchcraft and evil, and the unwarranted praise we heap on famous people who appear to have it all together.
While my heart goes out to her, my head says that she failed to stand up for herself, never found real truth, and buckled throughout her life hoping that some day her parents would finally show her love. They never really did. Their eyes were selfishly on themselves on earth and never glanced at the shimmering Moon....more
Lame memoir that, like the author's career, has little substance or distance. It's mostly a brag book in which he overstates his fame and success, as Lame memoir that, like the author's career, has little substance or distance. It's mostly a brag book in which he overstates his fame and success, as well as thinking it's admirable to talk about all the drugs he was able to consume and the famous friends he almost killed himself with.
This "former child star" (who was a young actor but never really an acting star) claims he became "the biggest pop idol in the world" (um, after only two decent-selling albums what were his "hits" again?) by manipulative producers who made him sing songs he didn't like (which was all part of the contract he signed) before he broke free of them, nose dived, and spent the rest of his life figuring out how to make money to feed his huge drug habit. Hilariously, he starts one chapter with, "I don't know why anybody does drugs." Seriously? At no point does he admit to being totally free of them, despite many interviews and TV shows where he admits he lied saying he was sober.
The way the book is written is off-putting. He claims he had never seen his TV work before so he went online to review videos and makes a few snide comments about himself, but then he basically ignores most of the acting work he ever did. Instead there are over 90 mini-chapters, many just a couple paragraphs, of his random thoughts. Near the end of the book he skips giant portions of his life and doesn't even address the ten years before the book's publication!
He never really explains how a kid who had never sung before signed with a major record label. He lip-synced many public appearances and admits it was fraudulent since there were paid loud singers that doubled his voice which was mixed low. He obviously doesn't understand the music business, even after proclaiming himself the greatest pop star in the world, and seems clueless about basics (he wrongly says that he was popular at State Fairs because people got to see him free with gate admission).
It has a Partridge Family feel to it--only David Cassidy could actually sing, had a sense of the business, and the group had some legit hits. Leif Garrett has little that's original to show for his short-lived music career.
If you're looking for details about any of his work you'll be disappointed--there's not much here. Instead he wastes chapter after chapter on his drug usage and the famous people he exposes as joining him. Some, like Robert Downey Jr., should be upset at how he's portrayed, even though it's supposedly in a friendly way!
Garrett also names names with guys that wanted to take advantage of him or sleep with him, but he denies every succumbing. He alludes to having no trouble with the girls but there are few that he mentions, the exception being Nicollette Sheridan, who went from an unknown dating the pop singer to overshadowing him within a couple years.
Then there's his involvement with Scientology, which he seems to defend as a legit religion at the same time condemning the cult for its manipulative practices. He left the group, but the chapter insufficiently addresses the nasty group that he and others he names (Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, Tom Berenger) were at one point involved with.
Beyond a few stories it's not worth reading. His title is misleading; he wasn't much of an idol and there isn't much truth.
You'd have to be a fool to believe this is a good memoir. It's filled with dull ramblings about road trips and drug usage while failing to include a lYou'd have to be a fool to believe this is a good memoir. It's filled with dull ramblings about road trips and drug usage while failing to include a lot of fully-realized stories. It's incredibly boring in long sections, and the fact that Paul Reiser (yes that Paul Reiser) was his co-author should make you wonder where all the talent went. They must have Takin' It to the Streets because it isn't in this book.
For the first 100 pages McDonald thinks we're interested in his travel routes for a number of moves from St. Louis to Los Angeles, his dull family, playing in small Illinois towns with unknown bands, or the many drugs he consumed under what he calls his "genetic predisposition to substance abuse." Right. The guy is simply a high school dropout loser with no sense of direction nor respect for others, showing up late, mooching off friends and wasting money.
The facts contained in his early career could be summarized in a couple of paragraphs. Instead they stretch out to mind-numbing repetitiveness with few real compelling stories told. A story is not just telling readers that you drove 2000 miles for the third time or that your dad was skeptical of your music potential, but actually going into dramatic depth about conflicts on trips, issues with family members, and emotional career challenges. All of that is missing in the early third of the book.
Things improve a bit once he becomes a Doobie Brother. He takes a short paragraph to explain how he ended up on Ride Like the Wind, one of the greatest Christopher Cross songs. He gives a few specifics about writing his hits. A short section talks about him falling in love. Then he throws Ray Charles way under the tour bus (in what is certainly not a complimentary story, no matter how hard he tries to spin it!) and even Quincy Jones is made to look bad. Eventually McDonald explains his turn toward a Nashville career. But many of the stories are often meager, leaving questions in your mind, and yawn-inducing minutia keeps filling space where there needed to be entertaining beginnings, middles, and ends. He names a whole lot of famous musicians he encounters or works with, but rarely tells anything interesting about their interactions or friendships.
McDonald has no trouble naming specifics about drugs he took (including being a drug mule) or the facial expressions of cops that arrested him while he was babysitting his girlfriend's five-year-old girl (what woman would leave her little girl with this addict?) but it makes him sound like a real loser. His cavalier attitude toward illegal drugs, almost bragging at what he got away with, is a real turn-off. At least he owns up to many bad decisions and failures, including getting a girl pregnant when they were both 14, in the eighth grade, giving up the baby for adoption.
He wrote about this baby news, "I had no idea how to process this all; I only knew I had to stop the downward spiral of morbid reflection on the what-ifs, if just for sanity." What the heck does that mean? His solution to the "guilt and shame" he claims he felt was to stop the downward spiral by joining bands, doing drugs and quitting school!?
I appreciate the underage couple not choosing abortion but devoting only a couple of paragraphs to what obviously was an incredibly unique situation that could have made a fascinating addition to the book (Catholic school 8th graders? Pregnant in the mid-1960s? Her sent far away to have the baby elsewhere?) reinforces that this memoir isn't really about stories. It's him writing simplistic summaries of a life outline, as if he was doing a song lyric mixed with Paul Reiser's standup=style of writing short bits.
McDonald adds, "Early on, one of the big attractions for me of being in a band--beyond the music and the overdose of male bonding--was that it was a great way to avoid 'maturity' and still get paid." Well at least he's honest about it! And come to think of it, that may be the same approach he took to writing this book, avoiding some things and still getting paid.
I love his singing voice, appreciate his songs, but think much less of him after reading this mess because I'm foolish enough to believe the negative things he writes here about himself....more
A major disappointment for this Mama Cass fan, a book from her daughter that's filled with fuzzy memories, criticisms of others, factual errors, incomA major disappointment for this Mama Cass fan, a book from her daughter that's filled with fuzzy memories, criticisms of others, factual errors, incomplete stories, and even some bad politics. What is meant to be a tribute to the author's mother instead comes across like a defensive middle school paper that deifies her mom but is too incomplete to give a passing grade.
Start with the fact that the writer was only seven when her mom died. So Kugell has to do some serious investigative reporting to uncover all sorts of details that she knew nothing about first-hand. She ends up relying heavily on other books written about Mama Cass (in one case quoting so much that it seems beyond the "fair use" exception to copyright) and interviews with some of her mother's friends or co-workers. There just isn't enough original material here to make this book stand out or successful.
There are only about 20 pages dealing with Elliot's short years with The Mamas and The Papas. The end of the book wraps up the author's past fifteen years of life in about 20 pages. This shows the lack of sense on the publisher's part regarding what makes up a good memoir or even biography. It's incomplete and often falls short on details or insight.
Some will point to Kugell uncovering the fake story about her mom dying by choking on a sandwich, but when the truth is revealed at the end of the book (it was simply a Hollywood Reporter friend printing what Cass's manager told her to write), the whole things seems anticlimactic.
Owen paints her mother as always wonderful and innocent, but the stories reveal that Cass was often unintentionally guilty of doing some pretty horrible things that put her child in therapy for years. Another myth clarified is the author's own birth dad, a backup band member who had a one-night stand with Cass. Kugell is not the daughter of Cass's ex-husband, who the singer was platonically married to at the time of the birth because the guy needed a deferment to avoid serving in Vietnam. Kugell is vicious in her mistreatment of her birth father once she discovers the truth, somehow blaming the guy for avoiding her when in truth it was her own mother that lied to Kugell and insisted the man never reveal himself.
Another major issue is that the writer treats her mother's drug addiction as being totally normal and no big deal. Kugell apparently enjoys her own drugs, mention recent marijuana usage. This clouds her mind (literally and figuratively) by failing to see the damage the drug usage did to Cass or their relationship. Could it have contributed to the woman's early death? Did Cass abandon the girl for weeks at a time in order to party with her hippie pals? Kugell doesn't appear to want to discover the truth about some aspects of her mother.
instead we get Kugell slamming others and spouting her opinions about politics, including an anti-Republican rant and an inaccurate summary of the 2000 election that she knowingly misrepresents to her children. She, of course, loves liberal stars like Clinton and Gore, but ignores their horribly immoral behaviors and stances. Her leftist fire must come from her grandparents, who the author calls "forward thinkers" because they believed in socialism. Ironic coming from a privileged girl whose famous mom became rich enough in a capitalistic society to buy a mansion and fancy cars, even eventually funding Kugell's own grown-up dreams through a new contract for CD sales.
In one head-scratching incident, the writer even praises Howard Stern even though the guy went out of his way to insult her and Cass on his radio show. When the author heard the shock jock mocking Cass for dying on a sandwich, Kugell and pal Carnie Wilson called in live. But, she writes, "he roasted me for being overweight. He started haranguing me over the cause of my mother's death and the ham sandwich story." The girl says she was hurt but "I remain a Howard Stern fan." WHY? If you are so sensitive to your mother's weight being alluded to (which is stated clearly throughout the book that the author takes great offense at any mention of her mother being overweight) then you should hold Stern just as accountable as you do those you don't like. Just another example of the classic hypocritical liberal that points fingers at others they don't understand but refuses to hold those they agree with accountable for their bad words or choices.
The book's factual mistakes stand out and reinforce the idea that the author doesn't know what she's talking about. Kugell hilariously claims that "one day after school" she came home to her mom in bed and together they watched the Wizard of Oz. Of course that was impossible in 1973. The movie was only shown annually on prime time broadcast TV until 1999, not after school on a local TV station, and there were no recording devices then.
This is similar to the writer's claim that during ninth grade in 1981, she would come home from her Massachusetts school and "watch General Hospital. There was a show that came on after the soap opera with a lady named Oprah that we liked too." Oprah Winfrey did not start her syndicated talk show until 1986, and before that Oprah was the host of a local-only show 350 miles away in distant Baltimore. The writer is obviously confused.
This is the same time period when Kugell claims "today I'd likely be labeled ADHD" for looking out the classroom window, lost in her thoughts, and getting bad grades in class. No other evidence provided.
I could go on, and while there are some interesting things in the book that only a daughter could mention, she was simply too young to have many detailed memories of her mother. Even as an autobiography for herself this fails to give enough expanded information to make it worth reading....more
This book is too short, and the review will be too. Pathetic asshole Rucker brags non-stop about his drugs and drinking, thinking it helped his careerThis book is too short, and the review will be too. Pathetic asshole Rucker brags non-stop about his drugs and drinking, thinking it helped his career and failing to see that it turned him into a monster that others gossiped about. At one point he writes about his success, “I owe it all to pot.”
He also thinks he’s very hot stuff yet has only a few good years of music success, then suddenly wraps the last 15 years of his life up in a few pages. The book ends in 2017 but is published in 2024.
The stupid structure of using other hit songs for the themes of each chapter doesn’t work and feels like filler.
Darius Rucker’s attitude, and his book, are too short. This book blows....more
Simply stating a short summary of limited data without context or comparison to other studies does not an accurate scientific book make. This author sSimply stating a short summary of limited data without context or comparison to other studies does not an accurate scientific book make. This author seems to think that throwing USA Today-style short pieces with color graphics on the page proves his conclusions. It doesn't. If anything, this "research" is incredibly narrow-minded, abridged, and way too focused on science fiction/fantasy films. There is almost nothing about TV in the book, and you'll have a hard time finding much of at all about reality. Thus, the author draws incorrect conclusions based on limited scope and little supporting data.
Fans of scifi and superhero movies may think it's great. There's a little something for animation lovers. He even spins a bit of information on minorities near the end. But overall this is a huge flop, a misdirection which does not contain proof of the misleading title.
I even question the writer's ignorant opinions that are tossed in. So much for his being a Pulitzer Prize winner, proof that any left-wing propagandist can get an award if his material draws woke conclusions.
He devotes only two pages to TV sitcoms, claiming, "Workplace comedies grew from a niche of the 1960s and 70s--with The Mary Tyler Moore Show leading the way." That will certainly surprise the creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show, which was the template for MTM, and of course all the other pre-1970 comedies that included a balance of private life and workplaces just as MTM did (That Girl, Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, I Dream of Jeannie, etc.).
In a tiny section on children's television he has the audacity to claim "actual scientific evidence that screen time has a big impact on the health and futures of kids is simply not there." That's a 100% lie, a falsehood that shows either the total ignorance of the author or the biased agenda of this publication. There are DECADES of studies, hundreds of them including some longitudinal, that prove the damage of screen time on children, especially the youngest. Isn't mentally ill society today proof enough of what chaos and warped mindsets are created by young people addicted to screens?
Doctors recommend zero screen time before age two and limiting to one hour of all media each day for schoolkids (pediatricians actually wanted to say zero media but knew parents wouldn't go for it.) Just go into the homes of any educated tech executives, where they ban electronics for their own kids because they know what it does to the brain.
Yet this goofball criticizes Daniel Tiger (one of the best educational shows in TV history and created in the Midwest) while spinning praise on Sesame Street (using New York City commercial gimmicks to manipulate material and propagandize children, which dozens of studies have concluded has caused as much harm as good). This writer's liberal approach to "science" is to focus on limited research that supports your preconceived conclusions while ignoring true science that includes conflicting data and common sense.
Hickey also tries to claim that media simply reflect culture when in truth movies and TV revolutionize society by putting forward characters and storylines that viewers copy. There is evidence that some people become what they watch when the presentation is of something different than what they're familiar with--those Jerry Springer episodes with threesomes, crossdressers, and animal lovers have resulted in people 20 years later boasting about public sexual acts and mental illness that used to be considered shameful.
He doesn't deal at all with the decades of research on the imitation and violence effects. Scripted movies and TV don't reflect life, but at least half of modern Americans seem to become what they see in the media and the streets are filled with criminal rebels that think they're dark superheroes.
The biggest flaw is that the book doesn't really deal with much reality--TV news, documentaries, reality shows, autobiographies, talk shows, and biopics are oddly missing--and entire categories of cause and effect media violence research are ignored. It's easier for Hickey to prove his false narrative by skipping the real world stuff altogether and just focusing on Spider-man, Star Wars, and Harry Potter.
It's simply another example of the misuse of the term "science" and how modernists don't look objectively at data. Like the recent revelation that those past studies claiming alcohol was good for you were inaccurate and proven false (concluding that for the healthiest lifestyle you should not have even one drink), the bottom line is that focusing on a few warped studies that try to say watching movies or TV won't have a significant effect are untrue.
Oh, he does draw simplistic conclusions that if you watch something scary it impacts your breathing. Or that movies impact the names people give their kids or the toys that are purchased. Wow, that's insightful, isn't it? Meanwhile nothing on screen profanity, gun violence, or verbal abuse having any copycat effect on society. And his "good vs. evil" discussion again focuses on...superheroes or pretend universes. Why is the real world not included?
The best thing for your mind is not to consume the fantasy/scifi/scripted crap at all. And in the end the best thing a reader can do is skip this horrible summary that misleads. You are what you write, Walt Hickey, and that makes you a bigoted mishandler of what's true, as well as a promoter of falsehoods....more
Creative non-fiction memoir of a woman who struggles with her choice to have an open marriage, yet everything about the book proves that ethical non-mCreative non-fiction memoir of a woman who struggles with her choice to have an open marriage, yet everything about the book proves that ethical non-monogamy doesn't work within the context of marriage. It's pretty well written in spots, but it's soulless propaganda that is meant to both make the author seem hip and make open marriage seem normal. Maybe that's true in the liberal elitist New York City arts community in which the author lives, but elsewhere people would see her as being immoral, extremely unhappy, delusional, and mentally ill.
The first half of the book feels refreshing because Winter is uncomfortable with the idea of having sex with men outside her marriage. Despite not stating any moral beliefs or faith, she comes across as naive and wholesome, only giving in to the first seduction when her husband gives her the okay. What she fails to acknowledge is that he has a very vested selfish interest in her sleeping with other men--because he wants to sleep with other women (if he's not doing so already). While Winter uses the book to dramatically overpraise her movie musicmaking spouse, he is a caricature here who she honestly doesn't understand. The guy works late into the night, avoiding spending any time with his wife or kids, never contributing to household duties, and she ignores all of these reasons for her needing another man in her life. Or the obvious red flags that he's really banging someone else behind her back, so of course he's thrilled when she proposes an open marriage!
Then by the middle of the book we discover the author has tricked us. Her writing style is that she fails to mention key things up front, causing the reader to draw incorrect conclusions, then surprises us with a tidbit that changes everything. For example, this supposed innocent woman eventually reveals she slept around freely with other guys when young, had a threesome, went to a swapping sex club and walked around nude, even experimented with a woman before getting married. This is the person we're supposed to accept has struggles with an open marriage, polyamory, and sex with others? She created a false narrative by waiting to reveal some truths.
She also writes up front that scenes have been combined and narrative order changed, a la "creative non-fiction," and at times things are just too convenient to be true. She also claims OkCupid is filled with hundreds of non-monogamous people looking to date outside their committed relationships, but from personal experience with that site I can tell you that either it's only true for New York City or it's a dramatic exaggeration. So you can't trust all that she's telling you.
Throughout the entire book the author is never really happy. None of the men that she falls for can truly fulfill her needs, and her husband's chipper personality is only to help himself get more tail as he expands his bedhopping quickly. Winter wants her husband's permission to bed whomever she wants, but when he responds by saying, "Oh, good, that means I can do the same thing," she acts all hurt, throwing herself on the bed in tears upset that she isn't enough for him. If she is that insecure in her marriage she shouldn't be sleeping around with other guys.
Like too many women, this author claims to be feminist but has a funny way of showing it by subjecting herself to pleasing men. She says she wants to be in control, but makes all sorts of bad choices, blames them on men, wants a guy to read her mind, tells lies in order to avoid conflict, reneges on what she promises and expects the man to not be upset about it, is dramatically anxious over something that is no big deal, is a total hypocrite in holding her partner to standards she won't meet, is delusional about how she treats others by claiming to be a selfless servant while really being a selfish passive-aggressive bitch, and needs constant conflict in her life in order to calm her insecure mind. This indicates mental illness that men are expected to make changes in order to accommodate it. Modern society has now decided that many things that are mental illness should be accepted as "normal," but in doing so it actually has made things worse for women and many others are hurt but it. This book is a good example of that.
The only way the woman's husband could tolerate her mental illness was by having numerous women on the side...and I'd bet that those late nights at "work" were actually in hotel rooms. But this writer isn't sharp enough to draw those conclusions. Oh, she goes to a therapist or two. For many, many years. But she gets nowhere. The best advice seems to be that one counselor says she has a "hole in her emotional bucket" that she's trying to fill by pleasing others, but the only way she can patch that hole is with doing things only for herself. What a crock--her hole is obviously from her inability to get outside herself, to find any kind of objective truth, and to anxiously search for ways to make herself feel good by pleasing others on her own terms, not theirs.
By the way, did I mention her mother forced her into a cult when she was young? Or that her mom had affairs with other men because her dad gave his permission? Instead of fleshing out those details we get two unnecessary chapters dealing with Winter becoming her mom's caretaker and taking mother to a writer's conference. Like so many recent memoirs the author seems to think the mother is a significant character when the woman isn't directly tied to significant conclusions.
The author also has no problem that her 14-year-old son knows about her open marriage, even saying it's good for him? Her boy freaks out for weeks after the discovery, worrying about where she is going while he's left home alone to babysit a younger brother, and her reaction is, "Why doesn't anyone seem to care if fathers have sex but every mother is supposed to be the Virgin Mary?" It's hilarious that she portrays herself as a selfless servant to family because all indications are that she is totally self-centered in fulfilling what her image is of an elitist NYC mother and ignores her kids in order to nourish her sexual desires. This woman is a teacher by profession and leads workshops on educating young students. After reading this book her employers need to never allow her in a classroom with young males again.
Then as she meets her final sex partner, who she falls in love with while still in love with her husband. Winter claims this new guy is special out of all her hookups because he understands the one key to her heart--music! HUH? Where did that come from? Her interest in music maybe took up two sentences in the previous couple hundred pages and suddenly she's saying that's the key to pleasing her? She married a guy who works in music production 16 hours a day, but he doesn't fulfill that in her? She suddenly starts playing guitar and making stage appearances! Some have said creative types are crazy, illogical, and immoral--all proven to be true here.
When her final affair ends, over five years before the book's publication, we have no idea what happens next in her life. The author doesn't tell us. How disappointing because a whole lot can change in five years. She wants to lead us to believe that her marriage is stronger than ever, that having more sex partners only increases the love in your other relationships. She even compares multiple sexual love partners to having kids--that the more children you have, the bigger your love for all grows.
But that's not at all the same thing. A woman birthing her own flesh and blood has no comparison to her having intercourse with various men who she knows little about. Winter fell in love with guys without ever seeing their homes, meeting their families, riding in their cars or even going out on a date beyond dinner in between sexual trysts at a hotel. That's not the same kind of love. The Greeks have four or five different meanings for "love" (brotherly love, sexual passion, love for family members, and playful flirting). Winter seems to think there's only one kind that can be spread around to whomever you like.
Her book, as an argument to support open marriage, royally fails. The title "More" in the end means that an open marriage just causes more problems, more hurt, more confusion, and more time spent away from those you're supposed to truly love....more
Fascinating, and at times frustrating, life story of a man who may or may not be the illegitimate son of Orson Welles. I'd never heard of Lindsay-HoggFascinating, and at times frustrating, life story of a man who may or may not be the illegitimate son of Orson Welles. I'd never heard of Lindsay-Hogg before, though I now know that I have seen some of his film work, and I'm glad I didn't know him before reading this because the surprise ending made a stronger impact.
The mostly well-written memoir focuses on his private life with little regarding his work, except for some interesting pages on his creating the music video genre with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. This guy knew so many famous people and the names are sprinkled throughout.
But that is also the big problem with the book: he alludes to all sorts of celebrities, actors, directors, and musicians but rarely goes into any detail about any of them. Bogart, Chaplin, Bardot, McCartney. A number of times he went past a name so quickly that I wondered what the author was hiding--this should have been filled with tell-all specifics about people few have encountered in private. A few times it could have been because his actress mother was in a secret affair with a star, and possibly it also was due to a few of the almost 50 unnamed women in the business Lindsay-Hogg says he had sex with (all summarized in one simple paragraph).
So the autobiography is incomplete and fills some chapters with some pretty dull details about his father, stepfather, nanny, and mysterious mother. He feels the need to include a section near the end quoting some of her old letters from the 1940s but they add little to his life story.
I won't reveal the surprise ending but it brought the proceedings to a very modern conclusion. But one big question remained unanswered: why didn't he simply have a DNA test done to prove paternity? Or at least even ask his mother directly who his actual father was before she lost her memory? His hesitancy to ever learn factual proof means that we're still left with the word of one very famous New York City woman that he more than befriends. And that just isn't proof enough about who his last sentence says he has become....more
Rambling, drug-induced, verbal vomit. A whole bunch of nonsense from the great mind of an ageing singer who has no fear sticking his foot in his mouthRambling, drug-induced, verbal vomit. A whole bunch of nonsense from the great mind of an ageing singer who has no fear sticking his foot in his mouth or speaking hypocritically.
He uses the book to spew off-the-top-of-his-head thoughts that rarely are positive. And while it can be refreshing to see a gay guy honestly criticize the homosexual community, Boy George's snarky put-downs and asides are often unnecessary or ill-conceived. There isn't a lot of solid content here--it's mostly him reacting to his career and commenting on how others react to him (his family, fans, celebrities, internet trolls). It just goes on and on but needs a serious editor to get rid of all the crap.
Most of his thoughts are leftist and extremely liberal, and he likes to criticize America while claiming he loves it. One of the things that are a foundation in our country is personal responsibility--being held accountable for your actions and words. He doesn't like that and takes a strong against cops and our legal system. But George often blame-shifts or tries to wiggle out of problems of his own making by pointing at others faults when he has plenty to deal with of his own.
He also repeats some of the things in his other book, claiming he has "evolved" and is "less angry" than before. I disagree--he seems like a crabby old queen who has simply given up and doesn't care about how his mean words hurt people. He just says what he wants and then says it doesn't make any difference.
No, Boy George, coming from you it doesn't....more
Extremely annoying biography that distorts the life and music of Karen Carpenter through the eyes of a modern leftist feminist author. There is almostExtremely annoying biography that distorts the life and music of Karen Carpenter through the eyes of a modern leftist feminist author. There is almost nothing new here in terms of facts--O'Brien, from England, merely pulls material from the main sources that were published long ago. But then she adds her politically biased spin on everything, adding slanted adjectives as if she personally was there when events occurred in the 70s and 80s. She wasn't--and ultimately there are enough errors to prove that O'Brien as no idea what she's talking about.
It's almost laughable in spots as the writer tries to find ways to slam men, demean Republicans, put down Orange County California, diminish brother Richard, and try to prove her theory that "the culture" did Karen Carpenter in. Sorry, but none of it works--especially when the author goes out of her way to try to show how terrible mother Agnes Carpenter was. Not exactly a good feminist role model there. But in also trying to claim that Karen was mistreated in a male-dominated music industry, O'Brien detracts from the amazing things the Carpenter sister did accomplish.
So ultimately the book is a failure. If you've read the other biographies on the group, this is completely unnecessary. If this is your first exposure to the siblings' story, don't believe a lot of the spin or the inappropriate political context contained within. By trying to look at Karen Carpenter through modern woke distorted eyes, Lucy O'Brien has done a disservice to the truth that emanated from the greatest female voice of all time....more
This extremely short book is a big disappointment, barely covering a handful of major productions the author directed, with very few interesting storiThis extremely short book is a big disappointment, barely covering a handful of major productions the author directed, with very few interesting stories. It's essentially a brag book where Mischer tries to tell us how he swayed presidents, the Chinese government, Olympic officials, and rock stars to create giant TV moments. Devoid of much real content beyond mechanics, it reads more like a high school athlete boasting about his sports statistics and game highlights.
There are many things wrong with this book. Let's start with the page count. It is listed as 204 but in truth it's only about 160. Mischer counts the 15 photo pages in the middle of the book AND the 15 opening pages at the front of the book (copyright page, contents, title page, etc.) before he begins writing anything. That's not the way most books work! Then there are about ten blank pages between chapters of the book. So for your $28.00 you get 160 written pages with lots of white space on them.
In terms of content, there are 21 listed chapters but the material is incredibly repetitive and boils down to only a half dozen events: Super Bowl halftime shows; Olympics; rock stars performing; TV specials; political causes; and a tiny bit about his personal history. He states so little about his private background that I honestly can't figure out how he stumbled into television since he was totally unqualified. After starting his career in public TV (groan), he suddenly gets promoted to positions that are out of his league with no explanation.
Maybe it was due to his support for leftist Democratic politicians and causes. Instead of him changing the world with his variety show work as he claims, it comes across as propaganda. He even feels the need to slam religion in the very short chapter about his home life, where he writes that he rejected his Christian faith after his mother died when he was 18. The author concluded that he should toss aside moral boundaries and "Do what you want to do while you can. Don't worry so much about doing the right thing; just do what you are passionate about."
Wow, isn't it great to know that a leading Hollywood liberal influencer admits he doesn't want to do the right thing?
There are many factual and grammatical errors in the text. Barbara Walters, who he takes credit for starting her prime time career, was not "the first U.S. woman news anchor in history." She was the first regular female anchor of an American commercial broadcast network evening newscast, but many other women on many stations and in different dayparts had anchored TV news before her.
Most disturbing is his flagrant hyperbole about the audience and impact his work had on the world. He actually writes that his Michael Jackson halftime show had "1.3 billion viewers worldwide." Not only is that a lie, it's impossible to prove. There are various ways to report U.S. viewing data, but the average audience for the Jackson show was around 100 million, with about 138 million tuning in for at least a couple of minutes. The network carrying the Super Bowl has always bragged about worldwide viewership of the sports event as being "over one billion" but that has never been proven--as a matter of fact one study showed that the worldwide audience for the Super Bowl is only a couple hundred million and doesn't come close to the World Cup viewership of over one billion.
If that isn't enough, a few pages later Mischer states that his Olympic Opening Ceremony in 1996 was seen by "an estimated 80 percent of the entire world, reaching more than five billion people." Again, it's virtually impossible that 80% of the world watched it and there is no way for him to prove it. In 2021 only 75% of the home in the world had TV sets, so in 1996 it wasn't even close to 80%, and even then all of them wouldn't have been watching the Olympics!
He spends the rest of the book overstating his work and impact. Everything he does, he claims, is groundbreaking and life changing. Beyond a few interesting behind-the-scenes moments regarding negotiating with stars, this book is not worth reading and fails to give a proper overview to his career. Like most of the things he directed, it's a bloated spectacle with some razzle dazzle but little substance and mostly forgettable....more
Syrupy-sweet memoir that reads more like a Disney press release than an expose of Annette's life. It's very cutesy but there's little in it that will Syrupy-sweet memoir that reads more like a Disney press release than an expose of Annette's life. It's very cutesy but there's little in it that will surprise people. She had pretty much the perfect life with a family that thought she was the perfect girl. And of course she was hand-picked by Walt Disney.
The book is so perky and tries so hard to be positive that she comes across as the precursor to Mary Tyler Moore's Mary Richards character. She's got a smile on her face and spunk, not letting anything get her down. There are very few dark times here until the end of the book, where she lies to hide her MS and then lets the world know the day before a tabloid is going to run the story. After that she is showered with awards and the book quickly ends. But this was written almost 20 years before she died!
It's worth a glance if you are nostalgic for the original Mickey Mouse Club or the beach movies, but otherwise this heart wishes that she would have had more substantive stories to share....more
What starts as a promising biography, with an opening chapter detailing the fight in the family after Tennessee Ernie's death, quickly devolves into aWhat starts as a promising biography, with an opening chapter detailing the fight in the family after Tennessee Ernie's death, quickly devolves into an extremely dull homage to the author's drug-and-alcohol abusing mother who committed suicide. There is actually very little about Tennessee Ernie in this book beyond some factual information, and even that is hyped by the author with inaccurate claims of the singer being the greatest at pretty much everything.
Having Ford's son write this book is a mistake. He is too invested in defending his horrible mother's image (which takes up about half the pages) and in trying to make his father look more significant in music history than he actually was. Yes, there were a few years where Tennessee Ernie had some great success, but he was not at the top of the ratings or the biggest selling music artist of all time. At one point Jeffrey says his dad was the first singer to sell two million singles. Come on, do some basic research discover that the man wasn't even close to holding the record. The author repeatedly also puts his father's TV shows at the top of the Nielsen ratings, and again a basic online search would prove that wasn't true.
I did learn that Ford's "pea picker" phrase was actually about migrant workers in the Great Depression. His son tries to claim in the book that his father was an "unsung social activist" by using the term to address listeners and viewers, but in retrospect it actually looks like his dad was being racially insensitive or possibly even talking down to people.
The most interesting part of the book is how Sixteen Tons came about, and at the end of the chapter the author writes, "I was hesitant to include the story of that song's genesis in this book." HUH? It's the biggest song his dad ever made! Shows the lack of judgment on the writer's part and reading much of the book I had to question Jeffrey's choices and handling of information.
The second half of the book, after Ford leaves his prime time TV show, is a messy mixture of family vacations and a marriage falling apart. At the end Jeffrey rushes through his mother's suicide and his dad's last years with a new wife so quickly that it lacks any emotional punch.
The pages are filled with a son trying to figure out why his mother and father went from being a humble happy couple to a destroyed home. He doesn't know Tennessee Ernie well enough to draw any conclusions, though he tries at first. "My God, I'm psychoanalyzing him. If he were still alive, he'd kill me." But on the last page the author concludes, "I'm not certain there's a moral here. And if there is, I'm not so vain as to suggest it be a lesson to anyone." I'd say the moral is pretty obvious--that fame and success can be destructive, not just to the performers but to the spouses and family members. And that once Tennessee Ernie stopped getting the respect he desired from his materialistic, fame-hungry, substance-abusing wife that he pulled the plug on his career and kind of gave up.
In truth Ernie's wife (the author's mother) is the unstated villain, selfishly causing the emotional destruction of her husband and kids before taking her own life. In the right hands this could have made for a compelling True Hollywood Story, but the son is not the right person to do it because he offers nothing but a gushing tribute to his beloved mother to the point of no return....more
Tedious retelling of the Smothers Brothers trouble with CBS, where every single episode gets picked through for no real reason. This author is lookingTedious retelling of the Smothers Brothers trouble with CBS, where every single episode gets picked through for no real reason. This author is looking for subversion and rebellion in what was for the most part a very plain variety show. Were there small portions devoted to some political satire and commentary? Yes, but this grossly oversized book overstates the case that the show "stood alone as the bravest, boldest entertainment series of its age." No, it wasn't.
The verbose volume goes off on tangents, fills in unnecessary cultural information, and tries to place the Comedy Hour as the forefront of cutting edge 1960s television. As a whole the program was just an old-fashioned variety show and there are a number of other series in that era that would beat its political and cultural impact.
Instead, the true story here, that the author wants to downplay, is of a very bad little boy named Tommy Smothers who always got into trouble. When he grew up and finally got his chance to be on national television, he continued his rebellious streak by complaining about everything the network told him to do, sabotaging his own career, and going against almost every demand of those that were paying his salary to do the show. In the name of "creative control" he would put naughty things into the series simply because the network told him not to, like the little brat he was in childhood. Every TV shows has examples of this, but what makes Tommy Smothers different is that he refused to compromise and withheld the tapes from the network. This truly is a tale of a bad employee who should have been fired years before the ending came to the program.
What's interesting is that brother Dick has nothing to do with the stand against CBS. It's truly Tommy's story and Tommy's disrespect for any authority that got the show cancelled.
His (and the author's) claims of "censorship" defy the meaning of the term. There is no evidence of government involvement here beyond President Johnson upset at one of their skits. The network, which paid for the show and has a contract saying it can cut what it wants, was simply removing portions that it felt didn't reflect well on CBS or society. It had every right to do that and this book is evidence that eventually the programmers gave the Smothers almost everything they wanted. Too bad Tommy wouldn't give back and instead was just a total jerk of an employee.
Despite the title there is little funny about this book. It's a deadly dull telling of what could have been an interesting lengthy magazine piece. But at 360 pages it seems to last longer than the original Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Like the show, it needed some executives to do some prudent cuts, and that's just plain wisdom--not censorship.
Like most Streisand movies, this memoir is dramatically flawed by the over-indulgence of her gigantic ego. Filled with attempts at false humility, claLike most Streisand movies, this memoir is dramatically flawed by the over-indulgence of her gigantic ego. Filled with attempts at false humility, claiming she dislikes her voice or looks or talents (beyond acting, which she seems incredibly proud of despite making some major career errors), she claims to base this book on "facts" when in truth she is manipulating every story to make herself a goddess who should be worshipped. It's all kind of sickening and tragic because there are so many good behind-the-scenes stories here that are destroyed by her verbosity and selfishness.
I could go through every chapter and pick it apart, but to dare to publish a 900-page autobiography is ridiculous. The Funny Girl section is over 130 pages alone! And two-thirds of it is just her rambling about very detailed conversations from over 65 years ago. There's almost 100 pages on the yawner Yentl. She also alludes to some love affairs but rarely says that she even slept with anyone else.
You want to know about her clothes or what she ate? Well you'll be happy because the book is bloated with that kind of unimportant detail. Lots of it. Added to all the absurdity that there is no index or footnotes, and Streisand's claims of only being interested in "facts" make her difficult to believe when she doesn't actually provide any proof of her many over-the-top contradictions to popular history of her works. Most of it is her spewing lop-sided opinions based on cloudy recollections. She even critiques her own movies, finally seeing them after decades of refusing to watch herself, and she decides that For Pete's Sake and The Main Event are pretty good. So much for her taste.
It should have been cut apart and edited down dramatically then split into two books. The actress goes on and on about all sorts of nothings as well as repeating her simplistic self-centered mantras. All details point toward the same message: Streisand is totally absorbed with herself and no one else. And this was from the start, where as an unknown and untrained performer she bossed around every director, producer, and writer so that she quickly earned a well-deserved reputation for being impossible to work with before most of us had ever heard of her.
I think Streisand was her own worst enemy. She was best when she had to perform for strong leaders who had differing views from her instincts. Her work began to fall apart early in her career when she insisted on total creative control and made some really horrible role choices, but many of her fans kept praising her for some really bad stuff. She does have a chapter where she chides herself a bit, asking What Was I Thinking?
This is also true of her view of how she photographs: the cover picture is certainly not one of her best, her claim to only having one good side is absurd, and Streisand has little good to say about What's Up Doc, where she is at her peak of beauty and on-screen charm. It simply is the one of the best films she ever made if not the best (and included a couple of her greatest vocal renditions ever) yet she uses only 7 pages of the book on it, much of it negative! The actress ended up selling her 10% of the What's Up Doc gross back to Warner Brothers before it premiered because she thought the movie was going to be a flop! Ha! It ended up being the biggest box-office hit where she starred as the lead. So much for Barbra's understanding of the industry.
I'm glad she reveals some of her real secrets in the book, such as cheating on her first husband with her co-star of Funny Girl on Broadway. But even then she turns the story into her victimization because of how her fellow actor responded when she broke off the affair. The entire text is filled with her self-admitted negativity and complaining about everything, while also packed with praise and reviews from others. She says that at her core she is totally insecure and at the same time unstoppable at wanting complete control. This woman has big issues but she is never the real victim and fails to see that everyone around her is suffering due to her rude and demeaning nature.
She has the audacity to say regarding those people who directed her early shows, "they didn't understand the way I worked." No, Barbra, at 20 years old you didn't understand the way others worked and never took a moment to respect anyone except those few people who acted like your lowly servants. And that has continued for over sixty years.
A perfect example is how she is constantly late, dramatically late, frustratingly late to her commitments. She admits it about 25 times in the book! Yet she demands that others who serve her to be there on time and when she's a director of her own projects she suddenly is no longer late. Total selfishness and a person who does not deserve any admiration.
If you think she stands for liberal causes and equality for the disenfranchised, think again. Barbra Streisand is the one creating the problems by setting herself and her opinions about all others, only praising those who act as her slaves. She is the ultimate out-of-touch leftist Democratic entertainment industry elitist, saying all the right things but living a lifestyle that mistreats those beneath her. Instead of true tolerance she has zero tolerance for anyone who doesn't match her very warped view of life and she fails to see things from anyone else's viewpoint.
The end goes on and on, it gets to a point around page 700 that you just want her to shut up. A CliffsNotes summary of this book can give you the highlights, otherwise you have to trudge through her distorted, mentally ill mind in order to get to the good stuff. After reading this you realize that despite her defensive attempts to make her sound loving, people who worked with Streisand were not the luckiest people in the world....more
Revealing but repetitive and egotistical book that's filled with sexual exploits and a whole lot of bragging. After a while you get tired of it simplyRevealing but repetitive and egotistical book that's filled with sexual exploits and a whole lot of bragging. After a while you get tired of it simply being about the women he has slept with, the troubles he had with those who cheated him out of money, and his talented but distant father. Cassidy's co-writer reflects the star's voice but fails to edit the book properly, resulting in the same things stated over and over while incorrect information is included.
David Cassidy thinks very highly of himself on these pages and some humility would have helped. He seems to brag about his misuse of women that threw themselves at him and his drug or alcohol abuse, then tosses in a few hard-to-swallow claims that he's simply a clean-cut boy that never did anything bad to anyone.
Unlike many celebrity memoirs, the Cassidy book includes very specific facts about his salaries and the times he had sex. Unfortunately it also includes Cassidy going overboard bragging constantly that he's bigger than Elvis or The Beatles. Seriously?
But if you read between the lines what he leaves out of the book proves he's not all that he says he is (addressing a few of his controversies but barely mentioning the paternity lawsuit from the mother of his daughter Katie, who is missing from this book). He was a typical self-centered young adult when he struck it rich and took advantage of all the vices.
More detailed stories of a non-sexual nature would have improved it. The ending is quick and weak, summarizing the last few years before publication with a few wimpy thoughts about happiness and his third wife. But as we know that didn't last, he later wrote a follow-up book, and never truly seemed to get happy.
Simplistic, surprisingly boring, and obviously from the hands of a ghost writer who makes Spears sound monotone on paper. She flies so quickly throughSimplistic, surprisingly boring, and obviously from the hands of a ghost writer who makes Spears sound monotone on paper. She flies so quickly through most of her life events that you wonder if she really recalls them or if she was just reacting to a photo or clipping or video that her coauthor has made her look at. No matter how it was done, it's obvious Spears needed serious help putting this short book together and there's little in it beyond connect-the-dots of her career with an attempt to spin her family as horrible people.
Most of the book has no emotion or detail to it. Her abortion of Justin Timberlake's baby made the biggest headlines but there's not much more in the book about it than what was in the news. She seems bitter and he comes across like a total scumbag. The details she has chosen to share about her family are simply sad.
Spears inability to take control of her life from a young age makes it feel like she is constantly blame-shifting: her parents and siblings in particular get slammed throughout even though there is not sufficient evidence of them being so horrible in her early years. She doesn't take much responsibility for her own bad choices. While fans may want to believe this distorted and limited narrative, most of this doesn't make her look good.
This book lacks real personal stories with depth and instead is just a CliffsNotes outline of her life, something that might work for Wikipedia but to pay money for this is a disappointing money-grab.
At one point when she's living in New York City she lost the key to her opulent pad and writes, "I was arguably the biggest star on earth and I didn't even have a key to my own apartment." There are two disturbing things about that statement--that this ditz couldn't be responsible enough to hang on to a key, and that she is delusional in thinking she's the biggest star on earth.
The book lacks much self-introspection. In the end she continues to complain about her family and says after she's released from the conservatorship, "It was time to find God again. In that moment, I finally made peace with my family--by which I mean that I realized I never wanted to see them again."
Whatever you think about this star with undeserving pop culture status, it will be reinforced by this book. To me she comes across just as ditzy, unhealthy, mentally unstable and troubled as the media portray her to be. Her family isn't the main issue--Britney Spears' problem is the woman in her....more
Five-star opening third leads to frustrating middle section when the author's teen years begin, deflating to a dull final third, making the book too lFive-star opening third leads to frustrating middle section when the author's teen years begin, deflating to a dull final third, making the book too long. While overall it's well written, the content enclosed is very selective and there is a lot about her famous father that is not directly addressed, while the author also fails to draw conclusions of morality out of this sad family story.
The book is at its best when Jamie is a child, recalling the happy moments between her parents and her famous father's successful early career. But once she gets into high school, she (and eventually her siblings) all drink when too young, do way too many drugs (which for some reason the writer thinks is important to detail, only to lose credibility while bragging about it), sleep around with whomever is convenient, and finally gloss lightly over her father's homosexual love interests.
There are some shockers. Jamie ruminates on whether her dad had interest in incest (a subject raised too many times in this book), and she wonders aloud if her longtime affair with one of his close piano-playing friends meant that they both had slept with the same man. Creepy.
One of the main problems with the book is that the author is a loser--she complains non-stop about being given special chances at jobs and entrance to Harvard because of her celebrity dad, yet when she tries to have a career in music she fails, no one wants her. What she doesn't explain is how she managed to pay for a very rich New York City lifestyle while not really earning any income.
The most ridiculous parts of the book involve the Bernstein's involvement with leftist causes, including supporting the Black Panthers and socialism in America. That's because the writer's mother was raised in such an environment in Columbia and her over-the-top rich father was probably making up for his guilty white privilege. At one point they own three apartments in the celebrity-filled Dakota building as well as two homes, in Connecticut and the Hamptons. All the while this couple supposedly dedicated to justice for all employ three to five servants and a small staff that were so mistreated they could at times be considered slaves. As with many elitist liberals, they love to raise other people's money for needy causes while failing to use their own to help the workers they abuse.
She also uses the pages to slam a number of people, such as blaming Tom Wolfe's print expose of one of their family high society parties as being the cause of her mother's death, but seems clueless about her inconsistencies. This liberated Democrat is anti-union because orchestras would walk out on her father's slavish attempts to run incredibly long rehearsals, and hates Ronald Reagan while celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall, which of course he helped precipitate. Roll your eyes as she talks about their time with the Kennedys and praises Jimmy Carter's presidency, the worst of her lifetime. Bernstein tells snobby White House stories to the point that you wonder if she realizes her own privilege while pretending to be for freedom and equality for all.
The end of the book is depressing and long-winded as the kids gradually take over the estate. It's amazing that these three Harvard-educated rich children know very little about life or true morality and slowly stumble their way into making creative decisions about their father's works. Never any apologies or guilt over their decades of drug abuse, promiscuous sex or drinking (finding it funny that their dad gives liquor to a newborn grandchild!), thinking all of this is normal. Ultimately Jamie Bernstein comes across as a talentless nepotist that remains simply the daughter of a famous father....more
This brag book has some well detailed behind-the-scenes looks at Hasselhoff's career mixed with all sorts of errors and a gigantic ego. It's dramaticaThis brag book has some well detailed behind-the-scenes looks at Hasselhoff's career mixed with all sorts of errors and a gigantic ego. It's dramatically overwritten by the co-author and includes short bios of people he worked with, even oddly taking the time to explain the O.J. Simpson case and other pop culture events.
This book turns everything, including the bad times, into Hasselhoff being the "greatest" and the one who set records for everything he did. Never is any of this questioned--we just all assume it's correct that over a billion people in the world watched Baywatch and that his shows were always "number one." The truth demands some context and data, especially after finding a number of factual mistakes and even grammatical errors. It's not explained why this American-published book includes the British spelling of some words.
It certainly has plenty of fun stories, and David's upbeat attitude is infectious, but he raises some questions that he fails to answer, such as mentioning being accused of being gay at least four times in the first 30 pages. His constant name dropping and bragging about charily work seems self-serving while he glosses over some of his flops as well as his longtime addiction issues. Oh, they are mentioned, but only to prove how great he was at overcoming things.
It's certainly a book worth reading as a reminder that Hasselhoff wasn't just a punchline--he was fairly involved in creating storylines, had decent success overseas as a singer, and did have some business smarts. But if you're looking for humility, don't hassel the Hoff....more
Sweely written book that lacks a whole lot of specifics and glosses over many major negative issues in life. Colter is a nice person who wants to painSweely written book that lacks a whole lot of specifics and glosses over many major negative issues in life. Colter is a nice person who wants to paint a great picture of everyone she knows as well as glorify God. If you're looking for a lot of inside information on what it was like to be repeatedly cheated on by your husband or having to fight his non-stop addictions, you won't find it here. Colter gives Waylon Jennings a pass on pretty much everything, choosing to position him as a great guy that she never stopped loving. The truth is much more complicated but whitewashed here.
Add to that her unquestioning support for her fundamentalist preacher-mother and her own wandering from the faith, and this book often leaves more questions than answers.
So while it was an easy read that covers most of her well-known music, and her personal faith journey is nice to hear, it's unsatisfying and guarded. Outlaws never like to reveal their true selves....more
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