Book Review: "You Have No Idea" by Vanessa Williams and Helen Williams

YES. THAT Vanessa Williams. THE Vanessa Williams. The one who went to Syracuse and was the first black Miss America and who was on Broadway and who played the resplendent Wilhelmina Slater on Ugly Betty and who sang that song from Pocahontas that listen to in my car every day because my kid just won't shut up about it. VANESSA WILLIAMS.

(You can probably tell that I am VERY EXCITED that BlogHer Book Club gave me a chance to review her memoir, You Have No Idea, which Ms. Williams wrote with her mother. And here's a newsflash [and also the short version of this review]: Vanessa Williams is pretty awesome, and her mother doubly so.)

(Also, full disclosure: I love that "Colours of the Wind" song. Makes my cry every time. Yes, I'm a hippy-dippy tree hugger. Whatever. Don't you judge me.)

The main theme of You Have No Idea is resiliency. How do you bounce back from scandals, bad decisions, broken hearts, deep dark secrets, and somehow manage to come out on the other side better than ever? According to Vanessa and Helen, you do it by never forgetting where you come from and by always remembering what is really important. You stand with and behind the people who have always stood with and behind you. You learn from your mother, and you share your wisdom and experience with your daughter.

One of the things I like best about this memoir is that is told "in parallel" -- for example, when Vanessa talks about the Miss America scandal, it's not just her story; her mother also gets a chance to talk about how those events affected her, as well. You can tell in the language and expressions how much these two have rub off on each other. They're not entirely alike, but they're not entirely different, either (as you would expect from a mother and daughter who are very close).

Mostly, though, it's refreshing to read a book about a celebrity that isn't vapid, vacuous, or vicious. Partly this is because Helen is not "famous" except mostly by association (although her own accomplishments as a teacher are outstanding on their own), but I also think this is because both women are just so darned nice, smart, and funny. The tell their story in a way that is honest but also diplomatic; they recognize that it is possible to tell the truth without hurting others' feelings more than necessary.

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Disclaimer: This is a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are my own. Come on over and join the discussion!

Book Review: "The Magic Room" by Jeffrey Zaslow

I have a daughter, an adorable girl who will hopefully grow into a stunning woman, and one day her father and I might have to buy her a wedding dress. And when that day comes, I hope my daughter will get to stand on a pedestal in a place like Becker's Bridal, in place like the one Jeffrey Zaslow details in The Magic Room.

I hope that she will be like one of the brides that Zaslow describes, with a lovely or heartbreaking but ultimately interesting story of how she became the woman she will be, peering at the precipice of a new life with her future partner, maybe naïve or maybe wordly, maybe in the first blush of young adulthood or maybe well-established, but definitely hopeful and happy.

I hope that she will be helped by a woman like Shelley Becker Mueller, or her mother, or her grandmother, or her daughter, women who appreciate that every bride and every wedding is precious, and that every woman is perhaps at her most beautiful in her wedding dress, as she beams or weeps or both in the company of the memories of all the brides who have walked the aisle before her, carrying the hopes of all the brides who will come after.

I really enjoyed The Magic Room and have already recommended it to other parents of daughters that I know. My only caveat is that I found the subtitle ("A Story About The Love We Wish For Our Daughters") and the Introduction to be a bit misleading. The opening pages are quite personal and lyrical and almost had me in tears in places, but the rest is much more journalistic and objective. I would have liked a bit more introspection and perspective from the author -- what did he get out of his experience of writing this book, of spending so much time with these women and their families? But all in all, I found this to be a very satisfying read. 

We're reading and discussing The Magic Room at BlogHer Book Club this month -- won't you join us?

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Disclosure: I was provided with a copy of The Magic Room and was compensated for this review, but these opinions are entirely my own.

Book Review: "Theodora" by Stella Duffy

Sometimes I get really excited about a book because it has an interesting picture and an exciting quote on the cover. The cover of Theodora: Actress, Empress, Whore by Stella Duffy falls into exactly that category – the cover art features the back of a nude woman and the pull-quote from The Guardian (London)'s review reads, "There is no end of show business, court intrigue, and exotic sex."

Well, then.

I am sad to report that this quote is wrong on every level. The main character in the novel, Theodora, is an actress from sixth-century Constantinople, and in a way she sort of remains in "show business" throughout the book, but she leaves the theater proper early in the story. There is some "court intrigue" when Theodora becomes a Christian convert and is used to foster a relationship with Justinian, the man-who-would-be-Emperor. And there is only "exotic sex" if you consider a pre-adolescent girl being sold into forced prostitution by virtually every adult in her life, including her own mother, to be exotic. (I personally don’t, but then again, I read a lot of romance novels.)

But, I am happy to say, the cover of this novel is refreshingly misleading. There is nudity, and quite a lot more liberal use of the F-word than I expected. But while this is a book about someone who was, in fact, an actress, an empress, and a whore – Theodora is so many other things. She is strong and smart, a survivor of unfathomable abuses, yet always self-aware, self-confident, self-reliant, self-sufficient, and never a victim. The things she ends up with at the end of the novel are well and truly earned, and by the end of this book, I felt like Theodora truly deserved them.

And she'd definitely have some killer stories to tell about her journey.

We'll be discussing Theodora over at BlogHer Book Club this month -- if you're interested, why don't you join us?

Disclaimer: This was a paid review for BlogHer Book Club, but the opinions expressed are entirely my own.

Book Review: "Slow Love" by Dominique Browning

I'm on vacation this week, and every spare moment has been spent in a book. What I've been reading between wine coolers is Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put On My Pajamas, and Found Happiness by Dominique Browning, a memoir about the author at midlife, working through the abrupt changes that lead her out of her corporate office in Manhattan and into her pajamas in Rhode Island.

Much of the book is about the author's working through a long-term relationship with a legally-separated-but-not-divorced man, whom she eventually realizes is ambivalent about their romance. If you could even call it that; I don't think it's particularly romantic to spend more than a few months working things out with someone who repeatedly asked why it mattered that he remained married to his wife.

Ultimately, it felt to me like that relationship ambivalence bled into the pages of the book. It is beautifully written, almost lyrical, but behind the pretty words there is a strange lack of emotion. Every time I felt Brown had turned a corner and was getting to the point where she would finally find happiness, she reeled herself back and only seemed to find a grudging, almost unappreciated acceptance that I found frustratingly disappointing.

We'll be discussing Slow Love over at Blog Her Book Club this month -- if you're interested, why don't you join us? I'll be there as soon as I get back from vacation.