Britney Spears

What an amazing ride! I pre-ordered this book when it first became available because I wanted to be a voyeur, but I ended up being inspired by the way Britney took back control of her life. There are some salacious details, many of which were leaked ahead of the book, and they were “fun” to read about, but what stands out more than anything for me is the story of a person finding her power amidst so many others who tried to dampen it. She put her heart and soul into this book. Aside from show more the more serious aspects, this was also a nostalgic trip back through the 90s and 2000s, when I was finding my own way through the world. show less

You know how it's often a bad sign when a blockbuster movie is in production and someone new is brought in to do script re-writes? This slim book had three separate ghostwriters. Three! Finding that out explained a lot.

Look, I'm very glad that Britney Spears has escaped what was clearly an abusive legal conservatorship and that she is now better able to live her life on her own terms, but this is not a well-written book. It didn't feel like I was reading about the traumatic experiences show more Spears has had, and her reflections on them, so much as a manifestation of that trauma. There's no analytical depth here, but in a way that felt less like Spears was boundary keeping and more that she just doesn't have the emotional maturity needed for true self-reflection. She's a woman in her 40s but she sounds like a teenager. The writing is repetitive and contradictory, and while it's great that Spears feels more capable of sharing her own perspective and experiences, she comes across as a fairly textbook example of an unreliable narrator.

Spears also needs to have some friend around her who can say "Girl, no." Who thought that, after all of the Crazy Britney media narratives of the '00s that this book is trying to refute, it was a good idea for her to publish a memoir in which she says things like "I've always been almost disturbingly empathic. What people are feeling in Nebraska, I can subconsciously feel even though I'm thousands of miles away"? Girl, no.

(Justin Timberlake: Christ, what an asshole.) show less

Best for:
People interested in how youth stardom, misogyny, and failures of the justice system can impact someone.

In a nutshell:
Singer Spears shares her story, from being a teen star and one of the most famous people in the English-speaking world, through the conservatorship that kept her under lock and key for over a dozen years.

Worth quoting:
“I accomplished a lot during that time when I was supposedly incapable of taking care of myself.”

Why I chose it:
As someone who consumed a lot of show more pop culture musings in my youth, I felt a bit like I owed it to Spears to hear her tell her story, when so many others had chosen to tell it without her input.

What it left me feeling:
Angry and a little sad.

Review:
I was in university when Britney Spears became a household name. For a few years I listened to her music, but didn’t follow her much after I graduated. But she was so very famous that I couldn’t help but learn about her career just by living in the world. And what I learned clearly wasn’t the whole, or even much, of the story.

Spears’s father was abusive. Not physically (well, I’d argue how he treated her while he controlled her as an adult was physical abuse), but definitely emotionally. Her family was not kind to her. It’s kind of a wonder she ended up doing as well as she did, considering the lack of support, along with how the media and society treated her.

Like others who listened to Spears over the years, I followed the case of her father’s control over the money and her body. I probably engaged in my own misogyny, judging her for outfit, parenting, hair choices. Also, I naively thought that the civil court system might actually be acting in her best interest if she really was suffering from some mental health issues. Clearly, that was not the case.

I felt a lot of anger towards everyone who failed and took advantage of Spears over the years. Controlling what she could eat, who she could see. I’ve seen this mentioned before, but there are a lot of very famous men who have acted much more erratically and were much more irresponsible, but none of them had their personhood taken away. None of them had their father saying they had to remain on birth control as a 30-something-year-old. And that fact that she was as famous as she was and still was put under this control, with no support, and really no evidence it was even necessary to start, let alone for 13 years, is pretty fucked up. What’s happening to people who don’t have her resources.

In the book she addresses some of the things that people still comment on - why she posts photos of herself nearly naked, or in a bunch of different outfits. It’s about regaining control of what she does and how she is viewed. I get it. She might be in her 40s, but she missed her 30s pretty much completely. She’s figuring out how to be a grown woman. I wish her luck, and I hope all those her failed her and took advantage of her can make some amends.

Recommend to a Friend / Keep / Donate it / Toss it:
Recommend to a friend show less

Let's get one thing straight: Nobody's reading this book for the writing. We're reading it to understand just how one of the most famous people in the Western hemisphere was so completely suppressed for 13 years--while continuing to be in the public eye no less, performing and generating revenue for her suppressors. As such, the memoir is a horrifying look into how one person can be gaslit and manipulated, with access to her children used as blackmail to keep her in check. At times I felt show more like I was reading a Victorian gothic novel (Woman in White anyone??); I could not understand how the Spears family basically pulled off the most visible con of all time without it going checked for more than a decade--it's a damning indictment on the state of California and the entire framework of a conservancy. Spears's narration of events put me in mind of Elizabeth Smart or similar kidnapping cases: she went along with it externally, but internally she rebelled and did what she had to to keep her internal spark alive and not feel her entire self be obliterated. It's a miracle she isn't entirely consumed by rage at this point. It's a slim volume, and many reviewers have mentioned it's not a 'complete' memoir and has rapid jumps in time, but I felt this was intentional and well deserved. This woman has had her story told at her, to her, and for her. She should be able to say exactly what she wants, and as much or as little as she wants, and to have the final word. show less