Category: Memoirs

Book Related Topics, Fiction, Historical, LGBT, literary fiction, Memoirs, romance, women's fiction

3 for 1 Book Reviews

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It’s been a minute, so figured I’d do a three-fer before the year runs out. The reviews features a beloved author, a memoir and a Booker Prize winner.

Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid: If you have been a long time reader of the blog then you know how much I love me some TJR, in fact I ranked all her books here. I was excited to read this one but it pains me to say that it didn’t hit the way the other books did. One of the things I like about TJR as an author is how versatile she is and how she doesn’t have a formulaic writing style. This one centered around Joan who is an astronaut. Based in the 80’s it showed how she had to fight to be recognized in her field but it was also a book about Joan’s sexuality at a time when she couldn’t necessarily be loud and proud. In hindsight, seeing how much praise this book has received, I am wondering if I’m the problem. Now don’t get me wrong, the book was not bad at all but I do think it was all over the place. There were so many storylines and timelines and didn’t seem well put together as is typical of TJR. It took me a minute to get all the characters right and remember their respective timelines. It also felt like I was being forced or told what to feel and I’d rather it be organic.

Flesh by Davis Szalay: FOMO got the best of me, and I had to see what all the fuss was about and even after reading it, I still don’t get it. Listen y’all, I am trying to get used to this new wave of abstract writing. The book follows Istvan from when he was a teenager in Hungary where he experiences something traumatic and then we follow him to London as he gets older and lives a completely different life, almost as if the incident never happened. As he gets older and has all these different experiences, I keep thinking they would have some connection to each other but the more there didn’t seem to be one, the more confused I got about what the point was. I do think it is a very character driven book (which aren’t usually my favorite) so that could be the explanation for that but if the character didn’t seem to be processing all the things that were happening to him and doesn’t seem to care, it’s very hard for us the readers to be invested and care as well. The ending felt like walking into a glass door because I didn’t realize that was the end. It was very abrupt. Someone needs to explain to me why this was the winner of the prize.

Accidentally on Purpose by Kristen Kish: Kristen from Top Chef fame wrote a memoir and she is such a lovely person (and a hottie) and that was probably most people’s motivations for reading this book and unfortunately it was just okay. I know everyone wants to write a memoir but if you are not willing to be VERY open or share salacious details then it’s okay to just leave it in your journal. Kristen does the thing where you share but you aren’t really sharing anything. Even when she gets to certain points, she doesn’t name names. You do get the sentiment of the title where it feels like everything just fell into place for her in her career, even though she has the talent, there was still a great deal of luck on her side, and I appreciate her owning that because sometimes successful people feel like admitting luck diminishes their hard work. I also liked how she admitted not having a desire to find her bio parents (she is adopted) and not really looking into her Korean roots until later in life. Kristen does share her deep love for her wife, and you can see it come through. There is a point in the book where she is talking about her and we hear sniffles and honestly, it felt put on (don’t hate me!). I don’t think there should be one formula for a chef’s memoir, but I will say that there wasn’t that deeeeeep passion for food that you usually hear from other chefs, and it just seemed like something that’s part of her life. It felt like there was more of a passion for hosting (and that’s okay). I listened to this on audio. Overall, I don’t think it was terrible, but I don’t think it was very good either.

So there you have it. Have you read any of this? What did you think? Do you want to check out any of this after reading these reviews? Let me know!

Taynement

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: I’ll Have What She’s Having by Chelsea Handler

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“The people who don’t get you are not your problem. Sitting around and thinking of all the people who don’t love you or don’t wanna hang out with you just diminishes your own light. Focus on where the light and love come from and park yourself in front of that. There are many moments in life when your own light is all you need.”

Through the most tender essays I’ve ever read from Chelsea, she shares what her dreams were as a child and how far she has come. She examines the woman fame let her become and wonders if that is the woman she wants to continue to be. She shares being at a low point in her life, the things that are important to her, her family, her work and skiing. She shares how her being child free is perceived and how much she actually loves children even though she does not ever want to have biological children.

“Learning the art of making an argument without yelling or screaming is something to behold. I’ve always dreamed of becoming the kind of person who can do that. Nothing feels like winning more than not losing your temper.”

I have read every Chelsea book. This is the first Chelsea book that I have listened to, and I loved the experience I had with it. I listened to this book during a road trip, and it caught me unawares. I think this is Chelsea’s most vulnerable book. She shares about being rejected by a governor, playing pickleball with the Bushes, sharing psychedelics with strangers in Spain, what her relationship with her family has become, and the love affair with Jo Koy.

“You are the love of your life.”

I think that Chelsea presents like such a strong woman which she absolutely is, but it was quite interesting to listen to her describe her relationships and all the things she endured. It was fascinating to hear her stay with a cheating partner and go back to him over and over again. When she describes her relationship with Jo and how much they tried to make it work and how she thought they would be married, I felt compassion for her. She also declines to mention why they broke up because she just feels that she has outgrown that period in her life where she would throw the men she has dated under the table for a story. I suspected that she broke up with him because he wanted a more traditional relationship on the conservative side – but that’s just my speculation from reading between the lines.

“It had taken me decades to learn how to not lay blame, to not be punitive or vindictive when someone hurts me. To be mindful and consistent while recognizing the difference between instinct and impulse. To recognize that instinct is a knowing feeling, and impulse is acting on an emotion.”

I gave this book 5 stars because I really enjoyed listening to Chelsea let us into her life. Please do this one on audio if you pick it up.

Leggy.

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: From Here To The Great Unknown by Lisa Marie Presley & Riley Keough

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“I have a vague memory of this one conversation we had in that room about a passage that Elvis had underlined. I started to call someone to help me remember it, but realized that there’s no one left to call”

Whatever you felt after reading the quote above, is basically the feeling you’ll have about this book. For me, it was sadness and the feeling of loss and that’s what I got from Lisa Marie while reading her memoir. For those who don’t know, Lisa Marie, only child of Elvis Presley, decided to write her memoir but got stuck and enlisted her oldest daughter, actress Riley Keough to help her complete it. Not long after this, Lisa Marie passed away and Riley is left to complete what her mother started.

“Grief settles. It’s not something you overcome. It’s something that you live with. You adapt to it. Nothing about you is who you were. Nothing about how or what I used to think is important. The truth is that I don’t remember who I was.”

This was a very captivating memoir because it was everything a memoir should have, especially the most important – being honest. Lisa Marie was very open and honest about her life. She laid bare the good (which wasn’t very much), the bad and the ugly and you could feel her struggle and pain through her words. Even when she made decisions that seemed outrageous like deciding she wanted to be a mom and Danny Keough had to be the father and essentially trapping him, you just want to give her a pass because you just wanted to help ease her pain away. The honesty also rang even truer if you do the audio because you get to hear actual audio of Lisa Marie recounting her memories (which is what Riley used to finish up the book)

“He wasn’t an angry person, he didn’t live there. Some people full-on live in destruction. Others buy real estate and walk around in anger for a little while. My dad would just visit.”

Lisa’s first big loss was the loss of her father when she was 9 years old and I don’t think she ever recovered from it. She had a bond/connection with her dad that I can’t whole heartedly say was healthy. Not to say that they didn’t love each other, they did but her dad was an addict and as his addiction got worse and his moods became erratic it seemed like Lisa focused on just making sure she was on his good side. I say this to say that the book sounded like Lisa idolized him especially post-humously and it was almost like he could do no wrong. A stark contrast to her feelings towards her mom. She definitely wrote more about her dad than her mom.

“She mothers my daughter through me.”

As much as this was Lisa Marie’s memoir, the biggest impact it left on me was a desire to know more about her daughter, Riley. I mentioned earlier how it felt like Lisa Marie idolized her dad, I do think Riley did the same for her mom. She did a fantastic job of finishing the book for her mom and piecing together stories told to her by her mom. I felt that Lisa Marie didn’t stand a chance at happiness in life with everything that she went through and I wondered the same about Riley and how she was able to navigate the dysfunction and heartbreaks such as her brother’s suicide. She seems to be a parentified child and the person who kept the family together as the sensible one and it made me want to know more about her true feelings and how she navigated it all.

“I looked at my face as a child and thought, My God, if only anyone could have told you what you were going to go through in this life, what you were going to be up against. That cute little blond-haired child in the matching dress with her mommy. It overwhelmed me.”

Overall, I definitely recommend this book. It’s a quick 6 hour listen on audio. Julia Roberts narrates Lisa’s part and Riley narrates her part (I will admit I was not a fan of Riley’s voice). As mentioned earlier, we get to hear the actual raw tapes of Lisa Marie talking about her life and there is an honesty there that made me believe everything she said. She gave an aura of IDGAF and honestly, what was there to lose? I learned things I didn’t know about her previously like her romantic relationships, her music career and how fraught her relationship with her mom was. All this and more provided for one of my favorite memoir reads.

I’d like to give trigger warnings as there is mention of sexual assault, drug use and suicide.

Taynement

Best & Worst, Black Authors, celebrity memoir, Fiction, literary fiction, Memoirs, romance

Our Best and Worst Books of 2024

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Another year of reading is coming to a close and as always, we share with you what our best and worst books of the year were.

Taynement’s Best:

“I think of Constance’s hushed voice whenever we were cleaning together. Once some things get dirty they can never be clean again and once some things are broken they can never be fixed.”

I stumbled upon this book randomly. I sometimes go to the bookstore just for a happy high and I take pictures of the featured book display and go down the list to see what is available in my library. Sugar, Baby was and from the moment I read this book it has not left my mind and that’s why it is my favorite read. I couldn’t stop gushing about it to Leggy. I love books that remind you that life isn’t black and white. I don’t think enough promo was done for this but here is my review. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Some other faves:

  • Hold My Girl by Charlene Carr (another underpromoted book, I couldn’t even find it at the bookstore. The book asks the question “What defines a mother?”. Full review here)
  • Here One Moment by Lianne Moriarty (I never thought I would have a Moriarty book on my “best of” list but here we are. Full review here)
  • How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair (What a memoir. Full review here)
  • A Kind of Madness by Uche Okonkwo (Enjoyed these collection of short stories)
  • Little Rot by Akwaeke Emezi (Listen, I am just as surprised as you are to see this here)

Leggy’s Best:

“In the rare hopeful hour, I tell myself this darkness has a purpose: to help me recognize light if I ever find it again.”

I heard such good things about this book when it was released in 2023 but I never got around to reading it. Finally, I cracked it open in 2024 and I understood why it was recommended so much to me. Read my full review of this one here.

Some other favorites:

  • The Wedding People by Alison Espach. I read this last month and really, really liked it. I feel like everything might have been wrapped up too neatly but I still really enjoyed my reading experience. This will probably be my first review of the new year.
  • Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner. Rich people being badly behaved will always have my heart in literature. You can read my review here.
  • James by Percival Everett . You can read my review here.
  • Summer Fridays by Suzanne Rindell. I think this is my favorite romance of the year.

Taynement’s Worst:

I tried but I couldn’t get over the premise. Maybe it is possible, but it’s hard for me to imagine that someone would fall for the identical twin brother of the person who raped and impregnated her and have that child have an Uncle/Dad relationship? I know I say life isn’t black and white but this was not it at all.

Leggy’s Worst:

This book was just badly written and just bad. This was also the only book that I gave one star this year soooo it earned its place.

Thank you so much for sticking with us this year. Let us know your best and worst books of the year in the comments. Happy Holidays, everybody!

Taynement & Leggy

Black Authors, celebrity memoir, Memoirs, race, women's fiction

Book Review: Leslie F*cking Jones by Leslie Jones

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“You are with yourself every day, all day, all night—might as well like yourself.”

Leslie Jones is a comedian who is best known for her role on SNL for a couple of years. This memoir describes her life – from her childhood growing up in the South with a military father, her early high school and college days playing basketball, her early stand-up days driving from gig to gig and living from paycheck to paycheck to being cast on SNL which came because of a Chris Rock recommendation. I did this book on audio and I’m going to be reviewing this book on audio because I’m pretty sure this book on audio is very different from the printed book. For context, the printed book is 288 pages, the audio is 17 hours of Leslie just telling you, her story. It’s a long podcast filled with streams of consciousness and sometimes she even says – “I don’t think this was in the book but let me tell you about that time when…”.

“My talent can take me anywhere I want to go. I’m not conceited or cocky. I’m just convinced.”

I knew nothing about Leslie before I picked up this book. I’ve never heard any of her comedy and I don’t even watch SNL. I just know her as a public figure who was on SNL. So, I definitely went into this one completely blind about her story. Leslie grew up in the South with very young parents. Her parents got married when they were 18 and tried to do the best they could with what they had. Leslie’s ability to keep moving forward no matter what happened to her is very inspiring to listen to. She talks about her coming to the realization that she was black and a dark-skinned black girl at that and always asking her father if she was beautiful. She talks about hoping that her success will convince people who look like her to just keep going and that it gets better on the other side of being a grown up.

“I remember hearing Diana Ross once say, “Know who you are because if you don’t, they will make you what they want.”

Leslie is a very complicated person. There are a lot of things that I didn’t agree with, but I respect the fact that Leslie was always herself. Win or lose, she was always going to do it her own way and that takes a lot of courage to decide that who you are is enough. Did I listen to some of the stories and think she overreacted? Yes. Do I also think that it’s problematic that I think a dark-skinned black woman needs to tone it down? Absolutely. There is a lot of things living in America makes you internalize, and Leslie has internalized none of that. She tells you story after story of her trying to navigate her career – the things she did wrong and the things she got right. Consistently calling people out who she felt disrespected her because she’s a woman or because she’s black.

“I knew I wasn’t going to have children as far back as when as I was twelve. I am not a pain person. You’re telling me you’re going to pull a whole human out of my pussy? (For a start, I’m going to need more than six weeks off.) We saw a film in health class called something like The Beauty of Childbirth—but all I saw was hideous shit. What’s beautiful about snatching a baby out of a woman’s ass? The fuck? My cousin Rhonda even delivered a baby in our house, and I remember that there was so much blood…
None of this was going to happen to me.”

Leslie talks about her decision to not have kids. The abortions she had before going into planned parenthood for some much-needed sex education so that she could prevent getting pregnant. She was with one of her partners for a very long time and he wanted kids, but she was sure that if she stayed with him, she would be stuck and not achieve her dreams. Also, his mother hated her, and she got tired of the disrespect and left him. But as soon as she got pregnant the first time, she knew she was never going to be a mother. She knows that her mother would be disappointed about her decision to never have kids especially now that she has the resources to actually afford them but it’s a decision she made with clear eyes and has never regretted.

“He’s a grown-ass man. If you don’t watch out, you’re both gonna die—you’re both gonna sink in that same boat.”

Leslie talks about the complicated relationship she had with her father who wanted so bad for them to make something of themselves. She talks about her now deceased brother who was deep into selling crack during the crack epidemic in California. One of her regrets is that none of her family is here to reap the benefits of her success. As she describes her father, you get the feeling that she is hoping that her audience doesn’t judge him too harshly. She talks about how great he was when she was young and how he always told her she was gorgeous but also told her that she is a woman and black and she would have to fight hard to get anything in this world. You can tell that Leslie feels guilty that she chose herself unlike her brother who was stuck trying to take care of an alcoholic father. She was single minded in the pursuit of her career.

“The world’s not going to stop for that shit. This doesn’t define who you are. Don’t make this the focus of your life. There’s always going to be hurt before you get to the right place.”

All in all, I loved listening to this book, and it made me actually laugh out loud. So many times, I would stop and send Tayne a voicemail of something that I found incredibly funny. Like Leslie asking her therapist if she’s promiscuous because she was sexually abused when she was young and her therapist asking her if she’s considered that maybe she’s just a slut. It made me laugh so much because Leslie was like – you know what? you’re right. Anyway, I recommend this book and wish Leslie Jones continued success in all her endeavors. I gave this book 4 stars on Goodreads.

Leggy

Black Authors, Memoirs, Non-Fiction, race

Book Review: How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

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“A book, I soon learned, was time travel. Each page held irrefutable power.”

Born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica, Sinclair tells us of her upbringing in a very strict Rastafarian household. She tells us the story of being under the thumb of her dad who was basically a Rastafarian zealot and lived in fear 24/7 that his family would be corrupted by the Western world. So much so, that he kept them away from other people, made them grow dreadlocks, made them dress modestly from head to toe and banned them from so many other things we would consider normal. On the flip side is her mom, who was so smart but so passive and was complicit in her dad’s choice on how to raise the kids. Sinclair walks us through from the very beginning to the point where she began to rebel and begin to discover life for herself.

“The bond between them was as unspoken and unbreakable as the barrier between us.”

Wow guys, not since Sex Cult Nun have I read a memoir that was this mind blowing. And to no one’s surprise, what the two have in common is – religion. Sinclair was able to write an impactful memoir because she understood where she came from. Earlier, when I said the book started from the very beginning it’s because she gave us the background of her parents and we get to understand their individual traumas and understand their motivations to how they became who they were – not that it excused it but we had some kind of context.

“I was still young enough to keep approaching him, a kicked dog slinking back, doing as my mother did.”

The writing style in which Sinclair wrote this book was so good and there was a heavy air of foreshadowing that had you on the edge of your seat as her father became more and more volatile. It almost felt like it was a thriller until you remembered that it is a true life story. The juxtaposition of her father getting more volatile and her mother getting more withdrawn was fascinating especially when you consider that the thing that saved her and her siblings was how gifted they were academically, which you could say they got from their mother. She made sure her kids were well educated and used it to their advantage. Though her mother was complicit in some areas, she definitely scrapped for her children.

“How would I know where to begin? Here, in the same hills that had made my father, now sprung the seed of my own rebellion.”

As fanatical as the dad was, the one thing that confused me was that he did not stop them from going to school and in fact was proud of her accolades even if it came from the Westerners he seemed to despise so much. Since the mom was a tutor, she could easily have home schooled them but Sinclair going to school revealed her poetry gifts which led to her expanding her views on the world and realizing that perhaps there was more than what her father had told her. I will say though, despite all the awfulness, something out there was looking out for Sinclair and her family because things always seemed to work out just at the right time.

“The bond between them was as unspoken and unbreakable as the barrier between us.”

With the way, the book ended it seems Sinclair wanted to focus on just her upbringing and how she broke out of the mindset. It would have been nice to know where the relationship with her dad ended up in detail and I was particularly interested in knowing how this affected her romantic relationships. But overall, this is a memoir that will stick with you for a long time. Besides just telling her story, I learned a lot about Rastafarianism, something I knew nothing about before this. You can tell how much she loves her home land as she described various parts of Jamaica in detail and with love. I am always in awe how people remember so much detail about their lives because I know personally, I remember certain stories in detail but for the most part they are hazy. Though tough at times, I recommend this book.

Taynement

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: You Could Make This Place Beautiful by Maggie Smith

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“What would I have done to save my marriage? I would have abandoned myself, and I did, for a time. I would have done it for longer if he’d let me.”

Maggie Smith writes a poem that blows up and becomes the beginning of the end of her marriage. In her memoir, You Could Make This Place Beautiful, poet Maggie Smith details the disintegration of her marriage, the heartbreak that followed and her renewed commitment to herself and her children. This is a book about what happens to a marriage where your significant other becomes jealous of your success and expects you to shrink yourself and maintain the status quo of what your marriage was before your fame.

“I’m desperate for you to love the world because I brought you here.”

I remember reading an excerpt of this book as an essay in The Cut and loving it, which is why I picked it up. This book should have stayed an essay. I do not think Maggie Smith had enough material to make this an actual book. I was fascinated by the dynamic I saw expressed in that essay because it is a dynamic that I am very familiar with as a Nigerian woman. Smith’s lawyer husband constantly belittled her creative work, expecting her to perform a housewife role, even though she worked from home and when success finally found her, he resented her for it. I wanted to get an understanding of how despite being more educated than her mother, she had fallen into the exact same role as her mother even though she thought her, and her husband were a modern couple.

“Here’s the thing: Betrayal is neat. It absolves you from having to think about your own failures, the ways you didn’t show up for your partner, the harm you might have done.”

I never got this understanding because even though Maggie Smith chose to write this memoir, she is very reluctant to share her side of the story. She insists on telling us that there is no one truth, which is true, and also the very reason she should have never written a memoir if her truth hadn’t been solidified yet. If your feelings are still ever constantly changing, don’t write a memoir and then accuse your readers of having a voyeuristic gaze for daring to be curious about information that you are writing about.

She constantly would bring up a piece of information and then proceed to tell the readers that she would not tell us that information, why bring it up then Maggie? We did not ask you to write this book. You did! Why write the things you do not want to write about? Why keep bringing up specific scenes that the reader would have no idea about if you didn’t bring it up only to tell us that you won’t tell us what was said in the scene?

“I’m trying to tell you the truth, so let me be clear: I didn’t want this lemonade. My kids didn’t want this lemonade. This lemonade was not worth the lemons. And yet, the lemons were mine. I had to make something from them, so I did. I wrote. I’ll drink to that.”

One thing that is very clear in this book is that Smith is still angry. You can read it from the lines she has written and those she insists she will not write. I do not fault her for this, and she has every right to be angry. Her husband cheats on her, she finds out and proceeds to never confront him about it. He lets them go to couple therapy for months where he demands things from her that would mean the death of her career while never admitting that he cheated.

Infact Maggie spends therapy sessions continually twisting herself into pretzels to get this man to stay and never brings up the fact that she found out he was cheating on her. In the end, he makes the decision to end their marriage, get on dating apps and then move out of state, away from his children, to begin a new life with his affair partner. Who wouldn’t be angry?

“As if you have to break someone’s heart to make them strong. I could say you don’t get to take credit for someone’s growth if they grow as a result of what you put them through.”

Maggie Smith is a better poet than she is a prose writer. This book is so repetitive that I just wanted it to end. I love poetry so I enjoyed this more than the general public is ever going to. Smith spends the entire book circling around the thing while refusing to tell us about the thing. And she is so heavy handed every time she thinks she’s written a great line or said something profound that you can smell her smugness coming off the page. All in all, I gave this book 3 stars on Goodreads because I enjoyed the great lines in the book, but I actually wouldn’t recommend it.

Leggy

celebrity memoir, Memoirs

Book Review: Thicker Than Water by Kerry Washington

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Kerry Washington’s memoir was all the buzz last year with the big revelation that she found out her dad was not her biological dad. The book starts with the day she received the text message from her parents letting her know that they needed to talk. And from Kerry sharing her thoughts and wondering what it could be, she walks back on her life starting from her mother’s first marriage before bringing us back to the moment of her finding out.

The choice to do this was the first thing that impressed me about this book because it was a good way to just dive headfirst to the water cooler moment but then guide us through important moments that led us here. Her mother’s first marriage story was quite important as we get to understand how much she longed for a child after suffering a loss.

This book hit all the points of a memoir and she did not shy away from being open. She talks about her parents marriage, her dad’s financial flaws, sexually being abused by another kid and choosing not to reveal his identity, her abortion, falling in love with her husband, eating disorder and much more. Nothing was left unturned. It’s very easy to forget the accomplishments some actors have made in their careers but as she spoke about her work, I was taken down memory lane and was tempted to go back and rewatch all her bodies of work. The woman has an impressive list.

As always, I did this on audio and the actress in her showed in this narration and she made it enjoyable. Because Kerry is generally a private celeb, I can see how this book could be seen as a juicy tell all because most of the stories are new to us. I think it was an honest well written book with her authenticity being the best thing about it. I’d recommend.

Taynement

Christian nonfiction, Memoirs, Non-Fiction, Self Help

Book Review – How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told by Harrison Scott Key

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Key’s wife wakes up one day and tells him that she wants a divorce because she’s in love with their neighbor, Chad and has been having an affair with him for years. He is stunned because Chad’s wife and his wife have been friends for years and their children used to play together, and they have each other over all the time. This revelation kickstarts the insane years to come in their lives. It’s one thing after another and the waves just kept coming and knocking them down.

I was so torn reading this book. I think people take back cheating spouses all the time but when someone comes out and admits that their spouse cheated and they took him/her back, they’re met with a lot of shame and scorn. The number for infidelity in marriages is not looking good. I tried to verify the claim in this book that 1 out of every 4 couples experience infidelity in their relationship. I could not find an exact number that corroborates this exact claim but every number I could find was alarmingly high. So, somebody has to be lying. People are taking back cheating spouses all the time; they’re just not talking about it or they’re not in the public eye enough for it to matter.

Harrison decides to write about his marriage in a glaringly honest way. He is transparent about having the feelings so many of us think good and Christian people don’t. He talks about the break down and buildup of his marriage without being voyeuristic about it. Marriage is brutal and he wants to show you exactly how brutal it is to make a vow to be with someone for the rest of your life. Even his pastor reminded him that he can divorce her if he wants and assured him that it was sanctioned by the Bible, but he chose to fight for his marriage.

This is exactly what I’m torn about. I do not think these kinds of marriages should be fought for and I worry that a lot of people are going to read this book and decide to stick it out in terrible marriages because of this book. Also, they haven’t had years of distance from these events so who’s to say that this marriage is even going to actually go the distance. Are they going to come back in a couple of years and tell us they’re divorcing? I’m not convinced that they won’t. A lot of fighting for this marriage just seems like Harrison is doing all of it and the actual cheater is demanding a lot of things to decide to stay.

I also had to check my internalized misogynistic self and ask myself if this was a book written by a woman who took back a cheating man would I be more okay with that? There’s nothing in this book that I haven’t heard and seen men get away with in marriages and still stay married without me even blinking an eye. It’s almost like I expect men to act that way but when a woman has the audacity to step out of her marriage without being penalized for it, I suddenly feel uncomfortable reading it?

Harrison also talks about all his faults in the marriage. Honestly, I can’t imagine being married to him. He’s a humorist writer and has an amazing sense of humor but a lot of it was at the expense of his wife and a lot of it was mean. I don’t like mean humor especially in romantic situations. He rarely helped out around the house and basically let his wife do everything related to their children. I appreciate him being able to do the internal work and not stand there and say, “I am the perfect suffering husband married to this whore of a woman!”

Anyway, this is one of the most thought-provoking books I’ve read all year. I gave it 5 stars on Goodreads. If you read it, I’d like to know your thoughts.

Leggy

celebrity memoir, Memoirs, Non-Fiction

Book Review: Love, Pamela by Pamela Anderson

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I actually don’t know what the temperature of Pamela Anderson’s popularity is at the moment but in the 90’s she was a household name. She had her persona – blonde, big boobs, very sexual and let’s be honest ditzy. But we never really know the full story so I was interested in watching her Netflix documentary when it came out. It was also announced that she had a memoir coming out and I knew that I would be interested in reading that as well. The doc came out first and after watching, I definitely saw her in a different light and she is much smarter than most of the world gave her credit for. I was also curious to see how different the book was going to be. From the documentary, I learned that she kept very detailed journals and I think this helps in some of the clear details that she has in her book.

Pamela walks us through her childhood in Canada. Her parents’ quite frankly – toxic relationship which I think played a part in her toxic relaionships when she got older. Pamela’s childhood is impactful in her story because she suffered a lot of sexual abuse before the age of 18. This abuse included one from her babysitter and in another incident a situation with 4 boys. I had to take a breather after reading that part because you just wonder how one gets over repeated sexual assault.

She tells us about her career and relationships and of course her most high profile one with Tommy Lee. His jealousy, her miscarriages and how bad the paparazzi was to her. Of course she touches on the sex tape and we get to hear things from her point of view. There was a TV show about Tommy and Pam and I never stopped to think how she would feel about it and how it affected her. It was great to see her devotion to her boys and them being the reason she couldn’t be with Tommy even if that is what she wanted.

While Pam is all about seeking answers in whatever form – she shares her friendship with a pastor and she reads a lot of self help, I still think there is a gap in her relationship with men. Even if it was not her experience, I think she should have still addressed the accusations against Hugh Hefner. Pam holds Playboy in high esteem and only spoke highly of them. The same goes for Rick Saloman and she is still a huge advocate of Julian Assange.

All in all, I thought she met most of the tenets of a memoir and was pretty open about her life. It was a quick listen (5hr+ audiobook) and I feel like I got to know the generous, kind hearted, intellectual side of her that I’d never learned about from the media. I do wonder if watching the documentary affected my opinion of the book since some things weren’t new to me but overall it’s a quick read if you are looking to get a memoir checked off in your TBR list.

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