Book Review: Open Book, Jessica Simpson

Photo from amazon.com

Publisher’s Description for Open Book, by Jessica Simpson:

Jessica reveals for the first time her inner monologue and most intimate struggles. Guided by the journals she's kept since age fifteen, and brimming with her unique humor and down-to-earth humanity, Open Book is as inspiring as it is entertaining.

This was supposed to be a very different book. Five years ago, Jessica Simpson was approached to write a motivational guide to living your best life. She walked away from the offer, and nobody understood why. The truth is that she didn’t want to lie.

Jessica couldn’t be authentic with her readers if she wasn’t fully honest with herself first.

Now, America’s Sweetheart, preacher’s daughter, pop phenomenon, reality tv pioneer, and the billion-dollar fashion mogul invites readers on a remarkable journey, examining a life that blessed her with the compassion to help others but also burdened her with an almost crippling need to please. Open Book is Jessica Simpson using her voice, heart, soul, and humor to share things she’s never shared before.

*****

Okay, WHAT. This book is the surprise of the year for me! Jessica Simpson’s memoir is brutally honest, beautifully touching, and surprising in its relatability and content. Sexual abuse, alcoholism, and the truth behind Newlyweds: she holds nothing back. I want to be her friend and also go back in time and physically remove John Mayer from her life. I found her to be so compelling and genuine, and I spent the first 90 or so minutes listening to this with a lump in my throat. She knows the value of being honest and sharing her stories, and she is here to sit with you in her truth, no matter how ugly. This is going down as one of my top favorite audiobooks of all time (along with Michelle Obama’s memoir). Listening to her read her words and tell her own story adds such a layer or richness you can’t get through any other experience. It does feel like sitting down with an old friend, particularly if you, like me, are about the same age as Jessica and vividly remember the world’s love affair with Newlyweds, is-this-chicken-what-I-have-or-is-this-fish, Daisy Duke, and her exceptional lip glosses. (If she brings them back, I am buying one immediately for my 24-year-old self who couldn’t afford them when they came out.) Cannot recommend Jessica Simpson’s memoir enough—don’t miss this one.

Book Review: Here For It

Photo from Penguin Random House

Publisher’s Description for Here for It: Or, How to Save Your Soul in America; Essays:

From the creator of Elle 's "Eric Reads the News," a poignant and hilarious memoir-in-essays about growing up seeing the world differently, finding his joy, and every awkward, extraordinary stumble along the way. R. Eric Thomas didn't know he was different until the world told him so. Everywhere he went—whether it was his rich, mostly white, suburban high school, his conservative black church, or his Ivy League college in a big city—he found himself on the outside looking in.

In essays by turns hysterical and heartfelt, Eric redefines what it means to be an "other" through the lens of his own life experience. He explores the two worlds of his childhood: the barren urban landscape where his parents' house was an anomalous bright spot, and the verdant school they sent him to in white suburbia. He writes about struggling to reconcile his Christian identity with his sexuality, about the exhaustion of code-switching in college, accidentally getting famous on the internet (for the wrong reason), and the surreal experience of covering the 2016 election as well as the seismic change that came thereafter. Ultimately, Eric seeks the answer to the ever more relevant question: Is the future worth it? Why do we bother when everything seems to be getting worse? As the world continues to shift in unpredictable ways, Eric finds the answers to these questions by re-envisioning what "normal" means, and in the powerful alchemy that occurs when you at last place yourself at the center of your own story.

*****

I first encountered R. Eric Thomas because of this viral Facebook post:

OUT HERE LOOKING LIKE DESTINY’S DILF.

I went on to enjoy his work at Elle, and so when I saw his memoir on NetGalley, I jumped at the chance to read and review. I was not disappointed. I don’t think I have ever laughed out loud so much while reading a book. Of course this was going to be funny. But it was also whip-smart, honest, poignant, and didn’t shy away from some tough topics. It’s utterly enjoyable yet thought-provoking. Whatever your background or your reality, I’d bet most of us will find something to relate to in this memoir of finding your place when you feel like an outsider. There is an inherent connection offered in these pages through the experience of finding out who we are and where we belong. Come for the laughs, stay for the honesty. This feels like a conversation with a friend—or someone you want to be your friend. Absolutely recommend.

Thank you, NetGalley & Penguin Random House, for the ARC!

Book Review: Man's Search for Meaning

Photo from Amazon

Publisher’s description on Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor E. Frankl:

Based on his experiences in Nazi death camps, including Auschwitz, from 1942 to 1945, Frankl's timeless memoir and meditation on finding meaning in the midst of suffering argues that man cannot avoid suffering but can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.

****

OOF. Oof. This should frankly be required reading. A psychiatrist examines his experience of life in Nazi concentration camps. The stunningly clinical yet emotionally raw way he relates his experience in Auschwitz and other camps is remarkable. This is one of those books that I will always remember reading. It’s brutal and necessary. At times you almost can’t quite believe what you’re hearing—how could humans do this to each other?—but you look around and you know they can. This book is full of both trauma and hope. Evil and resilience. I got a little lost in the last part of the book that goes over the clinical theory, but otherwise, truly, I can’t recommend this enough. It made me think a lot about resilience, our place in the world, and how we keep moving forward. It is somehow both a hard and easy read. You can’t look away—and you shouldn’t.

I listened to this on Audible, and I recommend it. I found it easier to hear this as someone’s story than I think I would have trying to get through it on the page. The narrator does an excellent job.