The Woman in Me
By: Britney Spears
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication date: Oct. 24, 2023
Genre: Memboir
Rating:
In June 2021, the whole world was listening as Britney Spears spoke in open court. The impact of sharing her voice—her truth—was undeniable, and it changed the course of her life and the lives of countless others. The Woman in Me reveals for the first time her incredible journey—and the strength at the core of one of the greatest performers in pop music history.
My thoughts…
This is going to be a tough one to talk about. So bear with me. I grew up with Britney Spears. I saw her in concert when she was an opening act. So, I’m no stranger to who she is and the impact that she’s had on my generation. So, when she was released from her conservatorship I rejoiced that she was finally free. When I found out that she had written a book to tell HER story, I ordered it online. Which, is something I NEVER do. One, I am currently in a location without my bookshelves and a place to put books, and two, I don’t buy books unless it’s from an author that I love or a series that I’m obsessed with. However, I took a chance because it’s Britney, bitch!
Now this is where I duck my head and run in fear of pitch forks because I struggled with this book. When I say struggle, I mean, that if I had not purchased this book, I would have put it down and returned it to the library. However, I’m a frugal person and I don’t like to waste my money, so I pushed on. I mean, people have been RAVING about this book, clearly it would get better. Except that it never did for me.
Even with a ghost writer the writing was all over the place. As if she would read an excerpt from her journal and then get sidetracked with a story that kind of sort of relates to it, but isn’t at all in the same timeline. This happens a lot in the book and I had a hard time keeping up. Then, there was the wishy washy aspect of storytelling. Certain people in her life got chapters, or for *cough* JT *cough*, he was practically mentioned the entire book. However, people that she had been married to got no more than a sentence on how they met or even a paragraph of their life together. I just felt like if you’re going to tell a story, tell the whole story, don’t cherry pick what you want, because in the end, it just doesn’t paint the whole picture. Which then begs the whole thing of, “why did you even bring it up?” Basically, there was no consistency through the book. Between things jumping around so much, and the brief mentions of this person or that person who were staples in her life, it just left me feeling disinterested. I was not at all connected to who she is or what she actually went through, because my brain was always trying to play catch up on what she was saying.
Now, with all this being said, I am glad that she got to speak her truth. She has been silenced for so long, that I was happy that she was able to write this book and tell her story. You see, that’s the tricky part with rating and reviewing someone’s memoir. Who am I to judge their life? Which, by the way, I am not. Some of the things she did were a bit unethical in my opinion, but that’s just it, it’s MY opinion. At the end of the day, this was someone’s life, not fiction in a book. So all I can really rate/review is the structure of the book and the writing… and for me it just didn’t work. I’m sure that this was very therapeutic for her to write. I just think that it should have been a bit more looked over before being published because it felt very much like a rough draft.
