A readable account for Kravitz fans.
The singer/songwriter reflects on his early family life and the launch of his career.
In this rapidly paced, mildly engaging memoir, Kravitz recalls the many events that influenced his younger self before making it in the music industry with the hit album Let Love Rule (1989). His mother was actress Roxie Roker of The Jeffersons, and his father was TV producer Sy Kravitz. Throughout, the author draws on the dual aspects of his upbringing. “I am deeply two-sided,” he writes. “Black and white. Jewish and Christian. Manhattanite and Brooklynite. My young life was all about opposites and extremes.” The author writes lovingly about his family members—including Sy, who “lived in a framework of extreme discipline” and withheld affection—and how their varied cultural experiences were a source of enrichment and support. Through his family connections, he also encountered a number of influential recording artists, including Miles Davis, Sarah Vaughan, and Herbie Hancock (there’s plenty of name-dropping in the book). According to Kravitz, he resisted several lucrative recording deals before landing as a solo artist with Virgin Records. He was focused on authenticity and finding his true voice, an approach further inspired by his relationship with Lisa Bonet. “Lisa was bringing out something in myself I’d never seen before,” he writes. “The poetry of my soul. She gave me courage, inspired me, changed my whole artistic attitude.” Though Kravitz attempts to demonstrate his street credentials, describing his “nomad” experiences crashing at friends’ apartments while seeking local gigs, the narrative, co-authored by veteran ghostwriter Ritz, has the slick feel of a standard-issue celebrity memoir. The text lacks the grit and deeper, soul-baring substance of notable recent music memoirs by the likes of Carrie Brownstein, Patti Smith, and Flea. In comparison, this book reads like an extended acknowledgements page; the author is grateful to those who helped him, but he rarely expresses the sensation of meeting and overcoming obstacles along his journey.
A readable account for Kravitz fans.Pub Date: Oct. 6, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-11308-5
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Oct. 5, 2020
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.
The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood.
In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Though she initially survived, the disease’s recurrence would ultimately take her life when the author was 21. McCurdy candidly reconstructs those in-between years, showing how “my mom emotionally, mentally, and physically abused me in ways that will forever impact me.” Insistent on molding her only daughter into “Mommy’s little actress,” Debra shuffled her to auditions beginning at age 6. As she matured and starting booking acting gigs, McCurdy remained “desperate to impress Mom,” while Debra became increasingly obsessive about her daughter’s physical appearance. She tinted her daughter’s eyelashes, whitened her teeth, enforced a tightly monitored regimen of “calorie restriction,” and performed regular genital exams on her as a teenager. Eventually, the author grew understandably resentful and tried to distance herself from her mother. As a young celebrity, however, McCurdy became vulnerable to eating disorders, alcohol addiction, self-loathing, and unstable relationships. Throughout the book, she honestly portrays Debra’s cruel perfectionist personality and abusive behavior patterns, showing a woman who could get enraged by everything from crooked eyeliner to spilled milk. At the same time, McCurdy exhibits compassion for her deeply flawed mother. Late in the book, she shares a crushing secret her father revealed to her as an adult. While McCurdy didn’t emerge from her childhood unscathed, she’s managed to spin her harrowing experience into a sold-out stage act and achieve a form of catharsis that puts her mind, body, and acting career at peace.
The heartbreaking story of an emotionally battered child delivered with captivating candor and grace.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-982185-82-4
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 30, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2022
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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