Tag Archives: Memoir

Review: The Woman in Me

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The Woman in Me by Britney Spears
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pub Date: 10/24/2023

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears was my most anticipated October read!

This memoir explores themes of fame, freedom, strained relationships, and motherhood.

While I found the writing style a bit bland and personally thought they could have chosen a different ghostwriter, I was still captivated by the compelling story. Britney’s childhood years were marked by a heartbreaking home life, but I felt that her rise to fame was somewhat glossed over. I found it interesting that they kept focusing on her romantic relationships more than anything else when she mentioned that the interviews she was in focused more on her relationships and motherhood versus her music. The writing took a compelling turn once it got into her marriage with KFed. Once we got to that point, the writing turned to be more compelling.

I appreciated that Britney shared her truth with us and I truly feel so sorry for her. Living in a world where you’re constantly gaslit, losing custody of your young children to your ex-husband, and being threatened of close family members who control every aspect of your life is unimaginably tragic. Now listening back to her songs, they hit different and take on a new deeper meaning.

In terms of the ending, I was disappointed that they didn’t include updates on her divorce and her current well-being. I truly hope she receives the professional help she needs and has a support system that truly prioritizes her well-being and gains her trust. I ended up listening to the audiobook which was a fantastic choice and highly recommend this format.

Initially, I was disappointed to hear that Britney herself wasn’t narrating it, but Michelle Williams did an incredible job. After finishing the book, I understood why Britney didn’t narrate herself due to the tough subjects she doesn’t want to relive. I loved that Michelle narrated with compassion and empathy making her the perfect choice. Overall, I highly recommend listening to this if you’re a Britney fan.

Review: The Light We Carry

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The Light We Carry by Michelle Obama
Publisher: Crown Publishing
Pub Date: 11/15/2022

Thank you to Crown Publishing for the free book and PRH Audio for the complimentary audiobook in exchange for my honest review. 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

GoodReads Synopsis: There may be no tidy solutions or pithy answers to life’s big challenges, but Michelle Obama believes that we can all locate and lean on a set of tools to help us better navigate change and remain steady within flux. In The Light We Carry, she opens a frank and honest dialogue with readers, considering the questions many of us wrestle with: How do we build enduring and honest relationships? How can we discover strength and community inside our differences? What tools do we use to address feelings of self-doubt or helplessness? What do we do when it all starts to feel like too much?

Michelle Obama offers readers a series of fresh stories and insightful reflections on change, challenge, and power, including her belief that when we light up for others, we can illuminate the richness and potential of the world around us, discovering deeper truths and new pathways for progress. Drawing from her experiences as a mother, daughter, spouse, friend, and First Lady, she shares the habits and principles she has developed to successfully adapt to change and overcome various obstacles—the earned wisdom that helps her continue to “become.” She details her most valuable practices, like “starting kind,” “going high,” and assembling a “kitchen table” of trusted friends and mentors. With trademark humor, candor, and compassion, she also explores issues connected to race, gender, and visibility, encouraging readers to work through fear, find strength in community, and live with boldness.

“When we are able to recognize our own light, we become empowered to use it,” writes Michelle Obama. A rewarding blend of powerful stories and profound advice that will ignite conversation, The Light We Carry inspires readers to examine their own lives, identify their sources of gladness, and connect meaningfully in a turbulent world.

Review: The Light We Carry is a memoir/self help book. This nonfiction book dives into overcoming self-doubt, gladness, hope, and power. Overall, I enjoyed this book. The audiobook is wonderful because Michelle narrates it herself and it felt like I was listening to a dear friend give me advice. The hardback copy was also great because she shares photos each chapter. In terms of the writing style, I really loved the way that Michelle broke down what tools and advice what worked for her along with what she would. She also stresses in the beginning that the advice she gives worked for her but for the reader to choose what may work for them and disregard what won’t. I appreciated that she acknowledged her privilege in some areas. What made this book the powerful was she shared a vulnerable side of self-doubt, fears, and anxiety but talks about what she uses to change that into something that is actionable and powerful. Highly recommend picking this up if you’re a fan of Michelle!

Review: You Should Sit Down For This

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You Should Sit Down For This by Tamera Mowry-Housley
Publisher: Legacy Lit
Pub Date: 10/4/2022

Thank you to Hachette Audio for the free audiobook copy in exchange for my honest review. 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️

GoodReads Synopsis: A lighthearted and supremely entertaining memoir, You Should Sit Down for This is like spending the afternoon sharing tea, fresh baked cookies, and conversation with Tamera Mowry-Housley, the fun-loving, wisdom-sharing girlfriend we all need in our lives (always ready to top off your wine!). Most of us know Tamera Mowry-Housley as a beloved TV star—one half of the memorable duo on the hit show Sister, Sister and co-host of the FOX talk show The Real. Tamera’s spunky Sister, Sister character stole the hearts of millions, but the transition in the public eye from teen-girl star to grown woman with a family and thriving career wasn’t easy. Being raised in Hawaii as an army brat instilled in her the discipline needed to succeed and conquer her dreams, but she felt secluded and sheltered, and wondered if living on her own terms would ever be her reality. Then, she decided it would. Tamera stopped letting other people define her, tapped into her faith, and tossed away negativity to hone her own happiness and create a unique path forward for herself. In this pink book of quirky advice and funny stories, she encourages everyone to do the same. In a book that celebrates cookies and the juicy parts of life, Tamera will leave you feeling liberated and motivated to embrace the highs and lows of growing up.
 
Tamera shares heartfelt stories about exiling herself from the world of beauty pageants, the pressures of being a teenage star, her struggle with rejection, the craziness of dating later in life, the challenges of balancing family and career, and why it’s okay for women to hide out in their closets when they just need a few minutes of peace. Tamera doesn’t shy away from the tough experiences, hilarious missteps, and big lessons it took to build a thriving career and the full life she’s living today. Our favorite girl next door offers “Tameraisms”—bite-sized pieces of wisdom to empower other women to step up to life’s unexpected turns and surprises and make it all work. You Should Sit Down for This is a much-needed reminder of the magic that can happen when we open our minds and hearts to become the very best versions of ourselves.

Review: You Should Sit Down For This is Tamera Mowry-Housley’s memoir. This memoir dives into family, values, and tidbits of advice. Tamera narrates this memoir herself with her wholesome and bubbly voice which sounds like listening to a dear friend. Though she seems like a sweet person and it’s great that she shared her experiences with readers, this one didn’t work out for me. It just didn’t seem memorable or to have substance. Some parts seemed to be a bit superficial and the way some parts were written seemed that they were intentionally left out which is fine. I found it odd that she didn’t have more about her siblings considering how popular her twin and one of her brothers are. I’d recommend skipping this one.

Review: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing

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Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
Publisher: Flatiron Books
Pub Date: 11/1/2022

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

GoodReads Synopsis: In an extraordinary story that only he could tell, Matthew Perry takes readers onto the soundstage of the most successful sitcom of all time while opening up about his private struggles with addiction. Candid, self-aware, and told with his trademark humor, Perry vividly details his lifelong battle with the disease and what fueled it despite seemingly having it all.

Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is an unforgettable memoir that shares the most intimate details of the love Perry lost, his darkest days, and his greatest friends.

Unflinchingly honest, moving, and hilarious: this is the book fans have been waiting for.

Review: I had such mixed feelings about this book and was struggling to rate this. I loved that Matthew went into detail about his struggles with addiction, loneliness, and discussed about his childhood. I was surprised he didn’t blame his parents on any of it and was forgiving of them. I also loved the tidbits he shared about Friends and how he became casted as Chandler. I ended up listening to the audiobook which I highly recommend because even though his voice has changed due to age, drugs, smoking, etc, you can hear the vulnerability and the raw emotion in his voice. I applaud him for sharing his struggles in memoir as there is a stigma in men’s health not to discuss or share anything with loved ones and to suffer alone. November is men’s health awareness so I felt that was a very timely read. There were also some parts that didn’t work for me and made me lose a bit of respect for him. I know there were times he was just trying to joke around or be sarcastic about the way he was talking about other celebrities, but it just came off as mean or so unnecessarily desperate so he was trying to name drop. The way he spoke and treated women was no surprise to me. There times in the book where he seemed very arrogant as well which was a bit annoying. The last part that frustrated me was the writing style. He is an incredible writer and I was able to binge this in a matter of days, but it kept hopping all over the place which was difficult to follow and needed some more structure. If you’re a Friends fan and/or a fan of Matthew Perry’s work, I would recommend picking this one up. 

Review: In Sensorium: Notes for My People

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In Sensorium: Notes for My People by Tanaïs
Publisher: Harper
Pub Date: 2/22/2022

Thank you to Harper for the free finished copy in exchange for my honest review. 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

GoodReads Synopsis: Fragrance has long been used to mark who is civilized and who is barbaric, who is pure and who is polluted, who is free and who is damned—

Focusing their gaze on our most primordial sense, writer and perfumer Tanaïs weaves a brilliant and expansive memoir, a reckoning that offers a critical, alternate history of South Asia from an American Bangladeshi Muslim femme perspective. From stories of their childhood in the South, Midwest, and New York; to transcendent experiences with lovers, psychedelics, and fragrances; to trips home to their motherland, Tanaïs builds a universe of memories and scent: a sensorium. Alongside their personal history, and at the very heart of this work, is an interrogation of the ancient violence of caste, rape culture, patriarchy, war, and the inherited ancestral trauma of being from a lush land constantly denuded, a land still threatened and disappearing because of colonization, capitalism, and climate change. 

Structured like a perfume—moving from base to heart to head notes—IN SENSORIUM interlaces eons of South Asian perfume history, erotic and religious texts, survivor testimonies, and material culture with memoir. In Sensorium is archive and art, illuminating the great crises of our time with the language of Liberation.

Review: In Sensorium is a memoir that weaves in themes of South Asian perfume history, the history of Bangladesh, and personal reflections. This memoir is told through a Bangladeshi Muslim femme perspective. Tanaïs has such beautiful and lyrical writing that discusses extremely heavy subjects ranging from survivor’s trauma, rape culture, psychedelics to ancient history of violence to name a few. A couple of the aspects that I really loved about this book was learning more about history of perfume along with learning more about history of Bangladesh. I wasn’t really drawn to the personal reflections in the novel from the author, but I understood why they put that in there and the connection/relation to scent and history which made sense. I had a difficult time reading and rating the book as there were some very polarizing views that I didn’t necessarily agree with, but as difficult as it was, I had an open mind learning more about. This isn’t a book I would recommend to everyone as there are some very heavy subjects addressed, but it’s definitely a book that needs to be amplified and we need more books like these out in the world so we can better understand perspectives outside ours.

Review: Be a Triangle

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Be a Triangle by Lilly Singh
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pub Date: 4/5/2022

Thank you to Random House for the free finished copy and PRH Audio for the free audiobook in exchange for my honest review. 

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

GoodReads Synopsis: Everyone–even world-famous actress, author, and creator Lilly Singh–knows that sometimes life just sucks. In this book, Singh provides a safe space where readers can learn how to create a sense of peace within themselves. Without sugarcoating what it’s like to face adversity–including acknowledging her own intensely personal struggles with identity, success, and self-doubt–Singh teaches readers to “unsubscribe” from cookie-cutter ideals.

With her signature blend of vulnerability, insight, and humor, Singh instructs readers to “be a triangle,” creating a solid foundation for your life, one that can be built upon, but never fundamentally changed or destroyed. As she puts it, we must always find a way to come home to ourselves: “we must create a place, a system of beliefs, a simple set of priorities to come back to should life lead us astray, which it definitely will.”

Like a wise, empathetic friend who always keeps you honest, Singh pushes you to adjust your mindset and change your internal dialogue. The result is a deeply humane, entertaining, and uplifting guide to befriending yourself and becoming a true “miracle for the world.”

Review: Be a Triangle is Lilly’s second book, but the first book I’ve read from her. Be a Triangle is a self-help/memoir book that dives into self-love, mental health, social and cultural exceptions, and happiness. If you decide to listen to the audiobook, Lilly narrates it herself. The physical book contains these cute illustrations from Simmi Patel which breaks up the text. This was a super quick read, but it wasn’t really for me. I didn’t really learn anything from the book as the topics she discussed are topics you can find in other self-help books in greater detail. If you’re a fan of Lilly Singh, you may enjoy this.

Review: You Can’t Be Serious

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You Can’t Be Serious by Kal Penn
Publisher: Gallery Books
Pub Date: 11/2/2021

Disclaimer: I received a free finished copy of this book Gallery Books in exchange for my honest opinion. This has no effect on my opinion, review or rating.

GoodReads Synopsis: In this refreshingly candid memoir, Kal Penn recounts why he rejected the advice of his aunties and guidance counselors and, instead of becoming a doctor or “something practical,” embarked on a surprising journey that has included acting, writing, working as a farmhand, teaching Ivy League University courses, and smoking fake weed with a fake President of the United States, before serving the country and advising a real one.

You Can’t Be Serious is a series of funny, consequential, awkward, and ridiculous stories from Kal’s idiosyncratic life. It’s about being the grandson of Gandhian freedom fighters, and the son of immigrant parents: people who came to this country with very little and went very far—and whose vision of the American dream probably never included their son sliding off an oiled-up naked woman in a raunchy Ryan Reynolds movie…or getting a phone call from Air Force One as Kal flew with the country’s first Black president.

With intelligence, humor, and charm on every page, Kal reflects on the most exasperating and rewarding moments from his journey so far. He pulls back the curtain on the nuances of opportunity and racism in the entertainment industry and recounts how he built allies, found encouragement, and dealt with early reminders that he might never fit in. And of course, he reveals how, after a decade and a half of fighting for and enjoying successes in Hollywood, he made the terrifying but rewarding decision to take a sabbatical from a fulfilling acting career for an opportunity to serve his country as a White House aide.

Above all, You Can’t Be Serious shows that everyone can have more than one life story. Kal demonstrates by example that no matter who you are and where you come from, you have many more choices than those presented to you. It’s a story about struggle, triumph, and learning how to keep your head up. And okay, yes, it’s also about how he accidentally (and very stupidly) accepted an invitation to take the entire White House Office of Public Engagement to a strip club—because, let’s be honest, that’s the kind of stuff you really want to hear about.

Review: Kal Penn’s memoir, You Can’t Be Serious, was one of my most anticipated books for Nonfiction November. In his memoir, Kal gives us insight into his childhood, his experience in Hollywood as a South Asian man, his political experience working as a White House administrator during the Obama administration, and how he found his partner. Overall, I enjoyed this book! Highly recommend listening to the audiobook for this one!

Review: Will

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Will by Will Smith
Publisher: Penguin Press
Pub Date: 11/9/2021

GoodReads Synopsis: One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.

Will Smith’s transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it’s only half the story.

Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn’t see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn’t signed up for. It turned out Will Smith’s education wasn’t nearly over.

This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one person mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world’s biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.

“It’s easy to maneuver the material world once you have conquered your own mind. I believe that. Once you’ve learned the terrain of your own mind, every experience, every emotion, every circumstance, whether positive or negative, simply propels you forward, to greater growth and greater experience. That is true will. To move forward in spite of anything. And to move forward in a way that brings others with you, rather than leave them behind.” —Will Smith

Review: Will Smith’s memoir, Will, explores entertainment life, family, insecurity, and nuggets of wisdom. I enjoyed listening to the audiobook! Will Smith makes the audiobook come alive by adding music and rapping. He jumps around in the book a bit. My favorite parts of the book were the insights of his childhood and his family. It was also interesting to learn more about his rapping and music career, but I wish he went into more details about his movies instead of just stating surface level facts on how much he made for each movie. The last part of the book went more into self help which was interesting and challenged my views. Overall, I definitely recommend listening to the audiobook if you’re a fan of Will Smith!

Review: Greenlights

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Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Pub Date: 10/20/2020

Disclaimer: I received a free finished physical copy and audiobook copy of this book from Penguin Random House in exchange for my honest opinion. This has no effect on my opinion, review, or rating.

GoodReads Synopsis: From the Academy Award®–winning actor, an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction

I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me.

Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges – how to get relative with the inevitable – you can enjoy a state of success I call “catching greenlights.”

So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops.

Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears.

It’s a love letter. To life.

It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights – and to realizing that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too.

Good luck.

Review: Greenlights has been in my TBR since late last year when I received a physical copy from Random House. What can I say about the GoodReads Choice Award for Memoir & Autobiography 2020 that hasn’t already been said? First off, I really enjoyed this book! Matthew’s memoir explores taking chances, lessons learned, reminiscing memories, and truths. I loved switching from reading the book and listening to the audiobook. Matthew has notes and photos in the physical book which is fun to go through. The audiobook is also fun because Matthew narrates it himself and I love his way of storytelling. Highly recommend listen to this gem of a memoir!

Review: Barely Functional Adult

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Barely Functional Adult by Meichi Ng
Publication: Harper Perennial
Publication Date: 11/24/2020

Disclaimer: I received a finished copy of this book from Harper Perennial in exchange for my honest opinion. This has no effect on my opinion, review, or rating.

GoodReads Synopsis: Wielding her trademark balance of artful humor, levity, and heartbreaking introspection, Meichi Ng’s indisputably relatable collection of short stories holds a mirror to our past, present, and future selves.

Featuring a swaddled, gender-neutral, Barely Functional Adult as its protagonist, who says all the things we think but cannot say, this book is equal parts humorous and heartbreaking as it spans a spectrum of topics including imposter syndrome, therapy, friendships, first loves, letting go of exes, and just trying to find your purpose in the world. Prepare to excitedly shove this book in your friend’s face with little decorum as you shout, “THIS IS SO US!”

In this beautiful, four-color collection compiled completely of never-before-seen content, Meichi perfectly captures the best and worst of us in every short story, allowing us to weep with pleasure at our own fallibility. Hilarious, relatable, and heart-wrenchingly honest, This Book Is a Time Machine will have you laughing and crying in the same breath, and taking solace in the fact that we’re anything but alone in this world.

Review: Barely Functional Adult is Meichi Ng’s debut book. This nonfiction humorous memoir is a collection of short stories written in a memoir writing style with graphics. Overall, I thought this was a decent read. The author’s perspective of not being a young nor old person but trying to figure out your place in the world is something many people can relate. I wasn’t too impressed with the graphics in this book and some of the chapters seemed to be a bit random and meaningless. The chapters felt a bit choppy. Overall, I’d recommend reading this only if you are familiar with the author’s Instagram.

Rating: 3/5