Tag: celebrity memoir

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Born a Crime

Title: Born a Crime

Author: Trevor Noah

Genre: memoir

Since I’m the last person on the planet to read this much-hyped book, I figure that since I’m on a roll with celebrity memoirs, I might as well. I do wish I could have listened to it, but since I rarely do that, my standby ebook format would have to suffice. I know absolutely nothing about Trevor Noah, other than his job as the host of The Daily Show and the fact that he’s from South Africa. I’ve seen clips of TDS, and he’s really funny, but I don’t watch it. So learning about his childhood wasn’t something I sought out because I’m a fan of his. It’s just been recommended so many times by so many people that I thought, why not?

From Goodreads: Trevor Noah’s unlikely path from apartheid South Africa to the desk of The Daily Show began with a criminal act: his birth. Trevor was born to a white Swiss father and a black Xhosa mother at a time when such a union was punishable by five years in prison. Living proof of his parents’ indiscretion, Trevor was kept mostly indoors for the earliest years of his life, bound by the extreme and often absurd measures his mother took to hide him from a government that could, at any moment, steal him away. Finally liberated by the end of South Africa’s tyrannical white rule, Trevor and his mother set forth on a grand adventure, living openly and freely and embracing the opportunities won by a centuries-long struggle.

Born a Crime is the story of a mischievous young boy who grows into a restless young man as he struggles to find himself in a world where he was never supposed to exist. It is also the story of that young man’s relationship with his fearless, rebellious, and fervently religious mother—his teammate, a woman determined to save her son from the cycle of poverty, violence, and abuse that would ultimately threaten her own life.

This book was great. Trevor Noah is known for his humor, which is evident throughout the entire story. I laughed a lot, but it’s also a really heartfelt read. He loves his mother dearly, even though she was hard on him. He understood that her stubbornness was always from a place of love. She tried to teach them the ways of the world and how life as a mixed boy (his words) in S. Africa was the hardest life imaginable. They were also very poor. Like eating caterpillar sandwiches poor. Even if you aren’t necessarily a fan of his, the book is funny and engaging. I really enjoyed it, and I have a new respect for Noah. He certainly worked hard to get where he is.

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Will

Title: Will

Author: Will Smith

Genre: memoir

And….yet another celebrity memoir. I promise that’s not all I’m going to read these days. Although, I’m reading another right now. Ack! I guess I’m saving up all the ones I would have read during the year for right now. I can’t say I learned a whole lot of “dirt” in this one, unlike the other two, but Will certainly thinks highly of himself, which is definitely earned. In the 2000s, he couldn’t be beaten at the box office. But as he’s grown older, he has learned to take a step back and look at what’s really important in life.

From Goodreads: One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had.

Will Smith’s transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it’s only half the story.

Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn’t see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn’t signed up for. It turned out Will Smith’s education wasn’t nearly over.

This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one person mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world’s biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself.

When someone is young and makes it big, I think it’s often a rough go. Will’s parents were guiding forces in his life, but he still made poor decisions, ended up broke and lost, and had no idea what to do. Getting the Fresh Price tv show broke open his world, and he never looked back. But Will wasn’t just the greatest guy. He wasn’t a bad guy, but he never put others first. He was first. Always. His marriage suffered. His kids suffered. His own happiness always won. So, over the course of the book, his self-realization is really refreshing. He admits his mistakes and owns them. He explains who he is now and what outlook he has. I certainly recommend this for fans of his. You will see him in a new light.

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Going There

Title: Going There

Author: Katie Couric

Genre: Memoir

I really don’t read celebrity memoirs, but here we are again. I am a Today Show junkie and have always loved Katie Couric, so when I saw she had written her story, I knew I would read it. And it was definitely worth it. She’s honest and genuine. She doesn’t hold back about a lot of topics including the misogyny in her field and the downfall of her dear friend, (no longer, though) Matt Lauer. She talks a lot about the death of her husband, the father of her children, Jay Monahan. And she reflects upon the good and bad of her career.

From Goodreads: For more than forty years, Katie Couric has been an iconic presence in the media world. In her brutally honest, hilarious, heartbreaking memoir, she reveals what was going on behind the scenes of her sometimes tumultuous personal and professional life – a story she’s never shared, until now. Of the medium she loves, the one that made her a household name, she says, “Television can put you in a box; the flat-screen can flatten. On TV, you are larger than life but smaller, too. It is not the whole story, and it is not the whole me. This book is.”

Beginning in early childhood, Couric was inspired by her journalist father to pursue the career he loved but couldn’t afford to stay in. Balancing her vivacious, outgoing personality with her desire to be taken seriously, she overcame every obstacle in her way: insecurity, an eating disorder, being typecast, sexism . . . challenges, and how she dealt with them, setting the tone for the rest of her career. Couric talks candidly about adjusting to sudden fame after her astonishing rise to co-anchor of the TODAY show, and guides us through the most momentous events and news stories of the era, to which she had a front-row seat:  Rodney King, Anita Hill, Columbine, the death of Princess Diana, 9/11, the Iraq War . . . In every instance, she relentlessly pursued the facts, ruffling more than a few feathers along the way.  She also recalls in vivid and sometimes lurid detail the intense pressure on female anchors to snag the latest “get”—often sensational tabloid stories like Jon Benet Ramsey, Tonya Harding, and OJ Simpson.

Couric’s position as one of the leading lights of her profession was shadowed by the shock and trauma of losing her husband to stage 4 colon cancer when he was just 42, leaving her a widow and single mom to two daughters, 6 and 2. The death of her sister Emily, just three years later, brought yet more trauma—and an unwavering commitment to cancer awareness and research, one of her proudest accomplishments.

 Couric is unsparing in the details of her historic move to the anchor chair at the CBS Evening News—a world rife with sexism and misogyny.  Her “welcome” was even more hostile at 60 Minutes, an unrepentant boys club that engaged in outright hazing of even the most established women.  In the wake of the MeToo movement, Couric shares her clear-eyed reckoning with gender inequality and predatory behavior in the workplace, and the downfall of Matt Lauer—a colleague she had trusted and respected for more than a decade.

Couric also talks about the challenge of finding love again, with all the hilarity, false starts, and drama that search entailed, before finding her midlife Mr. Right.  Something she has never discussed publicly—why her second marriage almost didn’t happen. 

If you thought you knew Katie Couric, think again. Going There is the fast-paced, emotional, riveting story of a thoroughly modern woman, whose journey took her from humble origins to superstardom. In these pages, you will find a friend, a confidante, a role model, a survivor whose lessons about life will enrich your own.

Katie is an excellent writer, and her humor comes through loud and clear in this book. She’s also very honest. I believe her when she said she had no idea what Lauer was doing behind the scenes. I also appreciated her ability to look at her past self and declare her questions “tone deaf” at times. We have learned a lot in the past twenty years about how to ask questions that are more sensitive to others, especially to people of color, where Couric admittedly failed many times. But those conversations are what we need. We need to be able to reflect upon the past and learn from our cringe-worthy mistakes. I learned a lot about Couric through this book, mostly that she is just another person. She loves her parents and family. She struggled to be a present mom while balancing her demanding career. And she explains how she faced the worst when dealing with her husband’s death. Anyone who is a fan of hers will love this book.