The Woman in Me by Britney Spears

The Woman in Me by Britney Spears surprised me not in its bombshells or its revelations but in its humanity. Reading it felt like sitting across from a friend who is catching you up on their life. To be clear, Spears really appealed to a younger generation than me as I'm a bit older than her, so I didn't follow her career that closely even though I did enjoy some of her songs when I would hear them. The Woman in Me feels both like it is guarded and vulnerable, which I believe tells us something in and of itself. Spears has always had to be careful about what she shares and what she holds close. The Woman in Me is a powerful reminder of how damaging and devastating the paparazzi was in the 1990s and early 2000s. There is a strong message here about the public's insatiable desire for the salacious. I felt Spears's pain and her fear as the paparazzi surrounded her, especially when she had her children, babies at the time, with her wanting that money shot and not caring if they scared or even harmed her or the child in getting the photo. Spears talks about her social anxiety in a way that made me empathize far more than I would've expected. She speaks of her family with a mix of love, fear, and anger but not the hate one might expect given the circumstances. At times, she even borders on sympathetic to them in ways that I found surprising especially given their public displays of lack of sympathy for her. She describes how she went from a young girl to a superstar without feeling like she really knew what was happening. She talks about her journey searching for belonging and love and the mistakes she made along the way. There's one point where she states, "So I was young, and I made a lot of mistakes. But I will say this: I wasn't manipulative. I was just stupid." I nodded and winced in recognition of that feeling. There were moments when she blamed herself for actions of others and things beyond her control. Spears is very introspective throughout the book. The Woman in Me humanizes Britney Spears after decades of her being dehumanized by everyone from the paparazzi to her own family. I enjoyed and related to The Woman in Me far more than I expected to.

Check back soon for my thoughts on other books I'm reading including:


Words Are My Matter: Writings on Life and Books by Ursula K. Le Guin
Petals of the Moon: A Poetry Collection by C. Churchill
The Eagle Tree by Ned Hayes



Reviews will be posted as I finish these books.


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