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.


Disclosure: This blog contains affiliate links meaning if you click on those links and make a purchase, I earn a commission at no additional cost to you.

If you'd like to follow what I'm reading in real time, please follow/friend me on Goodreads.

If you'd like to see when I publish new books, please follow me on Amazon.

If you'd like to learn more about me, please visit tlcooper.com.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert

Image
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert grabbed my attention from the first page. Kolbert illustrates the future of extinction by illuminating the history of extinction. She tells a story of the Earth we inhabit in both scientific and historical terms related to the myriad species of animals that have and do inhabit the Earth. She travels to myriad places on the Earth to talk to scientists and historians. I felt like she took me along on her journey to places I would never go on my own. She discussed the effects of natural processes as well as unnatural processes affecting the extinction of species and how those extinctions lead to other extinctions. Her references to previous mass extinctions were always linked to the story of our Earth and present-day extinctions. She talked about frogs, bats, auks, coral, and trees among other things. The Sixth Extinction doesn't shy away from pointing out how each species is a part of an ecosystem and how all our eco
Read more

A Snitch in Time by Sunny Frazier

Image
Sunny Frazier always delights, and A Snitch in Time is no exception. She writes the Christy Bristol series in a way that feels lighthearted even in its darkest moments. When Bristol goes on vacation to visit her friend, Lennie, she never expects to get drafted into working for a different department doing her job. Bristol is intrigued enough by the crime at hand that her protestations seem half-hearted at times though her annoyance is very real. When she and Lennie get into a fight, she's left with nothing but the work the department expects her to do. Frazier drops the reader in the Sierra Nevada Foothills creating a sense of isolation that makes the reader cheer for Bristol to stand up to her superiors and get out of there while simultaneously wanting to her to solve the crime. When a witness contacts Bristol via phone she doesn't take her seriously at first only to discover she might have vital information. With suspicion cast in multiple directions, Bristol isn't sur
Read more

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D.

Image
Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, Ph.D. pushed my buttons... mostly in the best way. Neff offers her research, her own experiences, and her observations mixed with information from myriad disciplines ranging from spiritual to neuroscience. I had read quite a bit of what Neff offers in other places, but she pulls it together in a way that makes it easy to understand and that makes self-compassion feel accessible and attainable. Her arguments for shifting from self-esteem to self-compassion and self-appreciation were better than I expected. She includes exercises along the way to help the reader access self-compassion. Self-Compassion feels like an introductory course and left me curious about what the research has shown since its publication. Neff supports and explains her premise of the life-changing benefits of self-compassion so well that I began to re-examine my own self-compassion journey with a bit more compassion... Check back soon for
Read more