The Woman in Me

Reviews

'With quietly vengeful fury, the pop star recounts how she was exploited by not just her industry but her own family. The most riveting music book of the year by far' 'It’s nearly impossible to come out of it without empathy for and real outrage on behalf of Spears, whose admitted bitterness over the dire circumstances of the last decade-plus of her life – she no longer speaks to her family, and says she has no immediate plans to return to recording – is tempered by an enduring, insistent optimism'  'The Woman in Me tells a focused story that makes inarguable the ties between patriarchy and exploitation, and deserves to be read as a cautionary tale and an indictment, not a grab-bag of tabloid revelations. After all Spears has lost, the sharpness of her perspective is a miracle … May her truth pose a legitimate threat to the system that exploited her.' 'A cautionary tale about fame and the corrupting influence of money. And, just maybe, a glimmer of hope for a woman whose adult life has been dictated by others.'
  'Britney Spears holds nothing back in her short, bittersweet and extremely powerful memoir. Ultimately, The Woman in Me is a story not about music so much as about the way that women are still routinely mistreated in the music business. That it hasn’t turned into a complete tragedy is a testament to Spears’s essential fortitude of spirit – something that burns off these pages.' 'Anyone who has followed Spears over the years – and, due to the sheer force of her cultural ubiquity, that’s probably all of us – will want the very best for her. There is nothing tidy about trauma and recovery, and I hope The Woman in Me has been cathartic for her. It’s certainly not the end of her pain, but it’d be nice if it’s the beginning of a new chapter.' 'There are anecdotes and namedrops, sure, and the writing is casual, conversational as though she’s spilling it all in a classic Britney Instagram caption, but to see it as simply a famous person’s memoir is underselling it: this is a text that dissects the notion of the “mad woman”, that unpicks the nature of celebrity and highlights some huge failings in the American legal system. The power of this book is the fact that it exists at all.' 'Spears’s prose contains more compassion and perspective than bitterness or self-pity.' 'A cautionary tale about coercion, misogyny, control, exploitation, and the insidious grip of the patriarchy… Spears shares this story, which will undoubtedly be dissected and recounted elsewhere, with astonishing clarity.' ‘one of pop’s great cautionary tales. . . erases the people-pleasing Mouseketeer to express rage against the music industry, celebrity culture and her family. Whether it’s read as a document of Noughties misogynist pop culture. . . it’s a remarkably intimate testimony from somebody still coming back from the edge' ‘one of the biggest book deals ever…a genuine page-turner’ Expand reviews