RaveNPRSpears pours out decades\' worth of rage and sorrow ... Despite the sadness and anger that permeate The Woman in Me — particularly towards her family — the tone is much breezier than the heavy subject matter ... Readers will come away with a much more profound understanding of both Spears\' fragility and the fierceness that has carried her through. We are watching Britney Spears come to know herself, in real time.
Mary Gabriel
MixedNPRCareful ... Gabriel\'s book is a meticulously rendered, blow-by-blow account of Madonna\'s life and work, from her early childhood up until the pandemic shutdowns of early 2020 ... Notably, Gabriel didn\'t interview Madonna at all for A Rebel Life; it\'s a work of scholarship, and not an authorized biography-cum-hagiography. Still, Gabriel writes about Madonna as a hero ... Gabriel\'s most exuberant and evocative narratives come near the beginning of Madonna\'s origin tale ... There are some weird gaps in A Rebel Life. After spilling dozens of pages of ink on how closely image and action are intertwined in Madonna\'s work, Gabriel writes nothing about Madonna\'s recent cosmetic procedures, the ensuing public backlash, or the performer\'s response to that criticism.
Michael Cohen
MixedNPROver Disloyal\'s 400-plus pages, Cohen rips through accounts of dozens of incidents, ranging from Trump allegedly cheating mom-and-pop vendors for services rendered at Trump properties to those of the president making racist remark ... Tonally, Cohen alternates between taking accountability for his own behavior and trying to describe what he found so magnetic in Trump. That language sometimes skims close to erotic terms: \'It was physical,\' Cohen writes, \'emotional, not quite spiritual, but a deep longing and need that Trump filled for me\' ... As is typical in political memoirs, Cohen also saves space for some petty score-settling.
Jim DeRogatis
PositiveNPR... for more casual readers, Soulless is an important testament of DeRogatis\' slog towards justice, and of the forces that have seemingly cosseted R. Kelly and his career in the pre- and post-#MeToo eras. It\'s also a journalistic indictment: of Kelly himself; of the political machinery of Chicago; and of the music industry — from hangers-on to promoters to record labels to critics — that not only allowed the singer to persist in public life, but to become a global superstar ... The last third of the book feels more hastily constructed than the earlier portions, but the rush to publish is understandable, given how much has happened in the first half of 2019 ... I\'d hesitate to call Soulless a culmination of DeRogatis\' efforts; I can\'t imagine that DeRogatis has any plans to step away from what\'s become an integral part of his life\'s work ... There are bigger questions that go well beyond the particulars of R. Kelly, too ... For anyone interested in #MeToo, this is an essential book. But don\'t look to DeRogatis for any glimmers of hope or triumph ... [DeRogatis\'] dogged pursuit of the truth is riveting, as is his persevering drive towards something that might resemble justice.
