CITIZEN KIM

A case for taking Kim Kardashian more seriously.

Having profiled the Kardashians twice in 2019, journalist and celebrity biographer Van Meter presents this laudatory biography fully authorized by the celebrity and her close-knit family. Gleaned from hours of interview material with Kim at her palatial Hidden Hills, California, home alongside generous and revealing side profiles of her family, Van Meter hopes to dispel the notion that she’s a “talentless empty vessel,” and instead, a formidable woman who has worked tirelessly to amass a $2 billion fortune from entrepreneurial ventures, a reality show franchise, and much more. He diligently traces the Kardashians’ extended Armenian American family ancestry, including sections covering mother Kris’ messy extramarital affair and subsequent divorce from Robert Kardashian, and its harmful effects on her children. Van Meter goes back to Kim’s humble beginnings as Paris Hilton’s friend, then as her assistant in the mid-2000s, and her ascent from reality television caricature to a culturally relevant businesswoman, fashion icon, social media influencer, aspiring litigator, and globally omnipresent personality. Van Meter writes that Kardashian family loyalty and their modern “matriarchy” formed the sturdy foundation of their unified popularity and wealth early on. Siblings Kourtney, Khloé, Kendall, and Kylie, brother Rob, and “momager” Kris all share in the group’s successes, but Van Meter raises more eyebrows from the family’s dramatic disappointments such as Kim and then-boyfriend Ray J’s 2003 sex tape, Kim’s “wedding fiasco” to Kris Humphries, the family’s proximity to the O.J. Simpson ordeal, a horrifying home invasion, and “the unraveling of Kanye West.” The nonlinear biography is tabloid-frothy and intimately revealing, and Van Meter delivers the dizzying melodrama while validating the Kardashian luxury lifestyle and Kim and Kris’, in particular, “innate television savvy.” Ultimately, the verdict of however “misunderstood” Kim and company are (or if they are deserving of deeper thought) will remain with the reader.

An oddly lionizing biography that, despite a micromanaged feel, will engross fans and followers.