Last year I read three memoirs written by men, this year I read six newly released memoirs written by women. I don't have to be their biggest fan to read their book, but they have all had interesting lives so I wanted to learn more about their story. I know lots of people don't rate memoirs because they don't want to rate someone's life, so I will just give you a little synopsis of their story.
Rebel Wilson: Rebel Rising
Born Rebel Melanie Elizabeth Wilson in Australia, she shares an impressive journey from Down Under to Hollywood. Reading Rebel’s story was like sitting down with a best friend over a wine and chatting about life as it was a deeply personal memoir. This book takes you to the depths of her low points in life and the heights of her joys and success. And what an interesting life she has had. She went to an girls private school and talks about her grandmother's beach house, and how her family flew to American to visit Disneyland, yet calls her family poor?
Her parents divorced, she graduated from law school in Australia while never having a date before the age of 30. She talked about her struggles with weight, a PCOS diagnosis and her journey to motherhood through the help of a surrogate in her 40s. She talked about her year abroad in South Africa as an exchange student. She was kidnapped at gunpoint in rural Mozambique and held overnight. While in Africa she also contracted malaria and whilst in her malarial coma, she had a vivid dream that she had gone to the Oscars, and won an award for her acting. So instead of becoming a lawyer, when she returned to Australia, she followed the path of becoming an actress.
She has a lawsuit-riddled history one being a legal battle with Australian tabloids for publishing lies about her during the height of her success with the Pitch Perfect 2 movie. She won the defamation lawsuit against Bauer Media as she'd been forced to come out as gay before a headline-hungry journalist announced it to the world. She talks about how uncomfortable she was working with Sacha Baron Cohen and that story made a lot of headlines when this book came out. She left the chapter in where she details the disgusting misogyny and abuse by Sacha Baron Cohen but just blacked out the words.
Some other fun facts: In 2021, during covid, she had her birthday on a private island. She only made $3500 for doing Bridesmaids. She was later on Call Her Daddy podcast where she explained that she went on the dating app Raya and went on 50 dates in on year. She named her daughter Royce to have a unique name like her.
Lisa Marie Presley: From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir
I only read this because I had to know if her marriage to Michael Jackson was real and consummated. In 2022, Lisa Marie Presley asked her daughter to help finally finish her memoir. A month later, Lisa Marie was dead, she died from complications from weight loss surgery. There is a sense of sadness that hovers over the entire book. Mostly absent from this story is Priscilla Presley which does seem to emphasize their lack of relationship. Obviously, Priscilla could not parent properly, but then again, she was a child when she came into Elvis’ life, how could she develop those parenting skills?
Riley got the tapes that her mother had recorded for the book, laid in her bed, and listened as Lisa Marie told story. In between what Lisa wrote, Riley would add her own commentary for things she felt her mother left out. For instance her mother's marriage to Nick Cage was not mentioned marriage but Riley felt that 108 day marriage was worth mentioning.
They don’t talk about how she walked away from Scientology, just that she did leave it. Lisa's first job was set up by her mother to work on her estate board, but that only lasted 6 months until she got fired. Seemed like a good idea to know how her money is being managed. She never acknowledges that Graceland would not be there if not for Priscilla. When Elvis was alive, Lisa Marie was a wild child and had a horrible relationship with her own mother. Priscilla Presley is not presented here in a sympathetic light, and her various boyfriends took a terrible toll on Lisa Marie as a young girl. They never really explain Lisa Marie’s bankruptcy other than “her staff misused her credit cards”.
Sadly Riley own mother did not provide that for her or her brother Ben. They moved around constantly, from Florida to be near the Church of Scientology, to Europe and to California. When Lisa Marie ultimately descended into depression and addiction, she could no longer care for her family and Riley had to step in. Priscilla and Lisa both were young moms then did it again 20 years later to do it better. Riley was Lisa's night nurse when she had the twins. Then Lisa was a night nurse to Riley's baby by surrogate. After Lisa gave birth to the girls she got pain pills for her c-section and began the addiction that upped to 80 pills a day plus coke. Then years later she gets gastric bypass and loses custody of her girls to Riley.
I gathered from the book Riley was more famous as a baby than now even though she’s a proper actor. I watched her in the TV series The Girlfriend Experience which was about escorts. She was recently in Daisy Jones & The Six TV series on Prime and now starring in Under the Bridge on Hulu, two channels I don't have.
After being married to Michael Jackson Lisa learned how famous people operate, so she then hired 16 people to live in her house as staff including nannies and a holistic doctor. Riley considered her childhood a happy time surrounded by all these yes men on payroll.
Her music career was a disappointment. She tried to have a music career and released three albums but people would show up to her concerts in Elvis costumes and expect her to sing Elvis songs, not her own originals. So she ended up doing a posthumous duet with her father.
My overall takeaway from the book is that Lisa had so much money but so little ambition or drive. Lisa and Priscilla were both so unprepared to do life even though they had so many tools. I also read Priscilla's book.
Brittney Griner
I read her book because it made me so angry to read all the racist people online who felt she deserved to be in prison in Russia and who felt she didn't deserve to be exchanged by the US government, to me it was just racist. Her book doesn't cover how she left her first wife pregnant and tried to not be financially responsible for their twin daughters. After the release of the book her second wife gave birth to their son.
Our WNBA players don't make enough money in the USA so they feel they have to play abroad in the off-season. On February 17, 2022 when Brittney was detained for having 2 cannabis vape pens with 0.2 grams and 0.5 grams. She was detained in the Russian penal system for nearly 300 days. Following Brittney’s journey from being arrested in Russia, to awaiting her trial/sentencing in jail, to a labor camp, and finally to freedom and her struggles to adjust back home was such an emotional rollercoaster. She is 6'9 tall and wears a men's U.S. size 17 shoe so she didn't fit into her prison bed or prison clothes.
The book talks about things like Black women's hair and queer identity. Since her release, she has worked with the BOFH (Bring Our Families Home) campaign and used her platform to bring awareness to all those who are unjustly detained overseas. There was so much heat online when she returned she had to move houses to avoid threats.
Time ranked it as one of the 100 Must Read Books of 2024.
Ina Garten Be Ready When the Luck Happens: A Memoir
I don't have cable and have never seen her cook on TV. I have been a Martha Stewart stan all the way. In the book Ina says her and Martha lost touch "when Martha moved to Connecticut". Martha was on Watch What happens Live and Andy asked her about that and Martha clarified that what Ina really meant is that Ina dropped Martha when she went to prison.
Ina was very open about her unhappy childhood with her parents. So I was disappointed that she didn't discuss why she didn't have children, all she said was one sentence, "If I had children, I wouldn't have had time for my career". Well she's had the same career as Martha Stewart who has one child.
There is a whole side dish of privilege condescension that is sprinkled throughout the whole book. Lots of name dropping. She comes off as wealthy and privileged with many advantages. I grew tired of the self praise - she mentions numerous times about being told 'no' and proceeding to get what she wanted due to determination, cunning, and strong will. There was little dialogue, just one long narrative that grew boring. And then there was when Jeffrey told her to go buy an apartment in Paris because she had nothing to do. She talked about how difficult her childhood was because her mother only cared about image and then the rest of the book was Ina only caring about image. She talks about her childhood as if she lived in an abusive home with unbelievable parents, then she talks about her parents protection as if they should not have had a role in her life. This book comes across like a selfish person who just happened to always be in the “right” place. She should have just stuck to cookbooks.
Note I need to watch Martha Stewart's documentary on netflix that just came out.
Crystal Hefner
I used to the watch the Girls Next Door but didn't watch the final season once Crystal was on. I read a few other Playmate's books so I wanted to hear Crystal's story, but she didn't share much new that wasn't already covered in the other books.
She lost her father to brain cancer when she was 12, and then her first boyfriend and first love, Greg, died whilst away in the Army in Afghanistan. Her mother was an undocumented immigrant from England and thus could not work and had to rely on a man her entire life and was always obsessively searching for a new man. She was emotional neglected by her mother. Crystal had a rich stepfather whose study was filled with hundreds of Playboy issues in display holders. Thus she quickly got the message that her worth came from looking pretty or catering to men.
Crystal moved into the Playboy mansion at age 21 and discovered that that world was turned by money, betrayal, underhanded motives, fake smiles, and lots of Hef's favorite activities; not the compassion, connection, and authentic love she craved. I think she was young and naïve and no one helped her out of that pit. The first time they were supposed to get married she broke off the engagement 5 days before the wedding and moved in with Dr. Phil's son. The second time she actually married Hef, her mother had begged her to go back. When she was 26 years old she married Hef and they were married for 5 years until he died. The Hef that Crystal writes about is a sad, selfish, shallow man. He didn't seem to actually love anyone but himself. Crystal destroyed a huge cache of nonconsensual /blackmail insurance photos of women she found in the house. She has since removed her plastic surgery and no longer lives a life based on looks. In case you're wondering, Holly and Crystal don't get along and Holly has dragged her on her podcast.
Melania Trump
This book was released on October 8, 2024 and I'm #4 at the library on the waitlist for it. I was curious why she wrote a book, she's so private, is she going to share anything of interest? I've read the reviews and heard that she did not talk about Stormy Daniels whom her husband had an affair with while she was pregnant. Hillary Clinton talked about her husband's affair with Monica in her book. This is the only book on the list I haven't read yet, but will hopefully get my hands on soon so thought to include it anyway. One review said this comparing it to Lisa Marie Presley's book , "I just read Melania, an account of a surface, the image of a mask crafted as a book, and "From Here to the Great Unknown" is the opposite: It really aims to reveal what was behind the mask, from a very subjective, but subjectively honest standpoint."
Ivana Trump also wrote her memoir in 2017 and she talks about what it was like to live in communist Czechoslovakia, how she excelled at skiing to be able leave the country, then modeling. Her special focus was on raising her children as she said Donald wasn't involved and her work ethnic as a detail-obsessed workaholic. She held key managerial positions in The Trump Organization, as vice president of interior design, CEO and president of Trump's Castle casino resort, and manager of the Plaza Hotel. My mother is around the same age, from a neighboring country, both are blonde, fashionistas, career focused and have a similar thick accents in English so I found reading about her life to be interesting.
Ivana was a woman with a strong work ethic who valued ambition, discipline, and self-reliance. Despite being a workaholic, she maintained a balance by having family routines, like eating breakfast with her children and ensuring they were polite and well-behaved. She emphasized hard work, self-respect, and financial independence, as seen in how her children were raised without handouts, including no credit cards or lavish gifts. She believed in teaching by example, such as working hard to support her family and instilling values of integrity and loyalty.
Ivana went on the Wendy Williams show to promote the book and talk about the controversy between her and Melania. See Ivana claimed that her and Donald were still friends and that she has a direct line to the White House and calls every two weeks. And that she was the "first Lady Trump" and Melania felt the need to issue a statement to counter that quote to say that she is the First Lady of the Country. Ivana denied reports that she left her ex-husband’s January inauguration early to avoid an “awkward run-in with Marla freaking Maples at the party that night.” She claims that when Trump was President he offered her the job as US ambassador to the Czech Republic but she turned him down.
See her marriage to Donald ended because of his affair with Marla, but get this Marla showed up on to ski resort in Aspen where the family was having a vacation and confronted Ivana on the slopes to say "I’m Marla and I love your husband. Do you?" The argument made the covers of all the papers. In the book she said that she continues to reject all of Marla's public apologies for the affair. And said that Marla being on Dancing with the Stars was embarrassing. She was eliminated on week 4 because no one was voting for her. Although Ivana's pre-nup deal increased four times during their marriage, the divorce negotiations were bitter. It took two years but Ivana ended up with $14 million in 1991, plus 250,000 a year for the kids. She always said "Don't get mad get everything." She died in 2022 and her $22 million townhouse still hasn't sold.
Ivana went on to recall how Maples recently tried to make amends via an interview with the Daily Mail. “They called to ask if I accepted the apology and I said, ‘Apology not accepted.’ This woman broke up my marriage and took away my kids’ father. I don’t care how sorry she is.”
Kamala Harris also wrote her memoir in 2018. She talks about her childhood and how her parents met at the University of California, Berkeley, where they were both pursuing graduate studies. Her father being Jamaican and her mother from India. Her mother was a scientist whose goal in life was to cure breast cancer but sadly died from
colon cancer. Her parents met in a Black intellectual study group, later known as the Afro-American Association. Although her mother is Indian and not Black, as a person of color, she was welcomed into the group. Her mother earned a Ph.D from UC Berkeley in nutrition and endocrinology. Her parents were very active in the civil rights movement and brought Kamala to marches. Her parents divorced when she was 5. Her mother became a renowned breast cancer researcher and her father an economist. Harris opened up about how her mother was often underestimated as a woman of color with an accent.
I loved learning more about her, her work, her family, her activism, her life. Loved diving deeper into topics and issues and learning new things that will help me continue to grow in empathy and awareness. Loved her thoughtfulness, dedication to justice, and commitment the causes that need help. This is a great book to learn where she stands in many issues such as immigration reform, protecting DACA recipients and her opposition to a border wall in the Senate. In the Senate, she has argued on behalf of DACA recipients, victims of the opioid crisis, victims of police violence, and makes the case for taking climate change seriously a security threat. She has fought for the rights of DACA and families cruelly separated on the southern border. She never fought for the rights of Palestinians during the genocide in Gaza, some feel this cost her the
election.
I listened to the audiobook and borrowed the printed book from the library to see the pictures. The audiobook I got from the library had someone else narrating the book but I see that if you get it from audible, Kamala reads it, thank goodness! The whole time I was listening, I couldn't stand hearing Kamala's story from someone else's voice!
She prides herself on her work as a District Attorney for San Francisco fighting broken systems and prison reform that directly affect poor Black people. The book was more about her political career and little about her childhood. She showed how much she loved her step-kids. Her position on Black Lives Matter and supporting both victims and conducting law enforcement in an equitable manner was powerful. For those who do not perceive her as being Black enough, this book should dispel those criticisms. Or did she write this because of all the criticism that surrounded her when she was running for President against Biden that she didn't support the Black community? As she continuously referenced her upbringing as a Black-American, I didn't get much about her Indian heritage. The book reads like, "I'm going to run for President and here is my platform." Unlike Michelle Obama's book, which provided a lot of personal insights and gave a compelling, moving and interesting story, Harris' book gives the reader only a superficial look at her personal life, and a lot of political posturing!
Harris has worked to make marriage more equitable for the LGBTQ+ community. She reminded us that we have two Supreme Court justices who sexually assaulted a woman. She talked about cyber attacks from foreign governments as she was on the Homeland Security Senate Committee.
The book showed a picture of her marching against Apartheid in South Africa. So it was ironic that the reason she lost the Presidential election is because folks wanted a more progressive candidate.
What I’m reading:
I did it, I surpassed by goal of 12 books this year and finished 30 books! I just finished The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates which was a fantastic book! Now I'm reading You Deserve Good Gelato by Kacie Rose. She's an influencer who moved to Italy and talks about her experience living abroad. I'm on the waitlist at the library for the following most popular books of the year: The Lion Women of Tehran by Marjan Kamali, The Women by Kristin Hannah (author of The Nightingale), and The Wedding People by Alison Espach. I'm number 99, 153, and 157 respectfully on the waitlist so I'll get them at some point next year. lol
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