RaveThe Huffington PostA compelling — and devastating — read ... [Spears] writes with acute self-awareness ... Despite those dark chronicles, the book is not all doom and gloom. At times, Spears writes with humor.
Prince
PositiveThe Huffington Post... an affirmation of Prince’s Blackness and humanity. It also provides deeper insight into his relationship with his parents ... an inspiration. It successfully captures what made me cry, looking back at Prince playing in his scarf on that wet Super Bowl stage ... Prince writes about his childhood with clarity and poetic flair, effortlessly combining humorous anecdotes with deep self-reflection and musical analysis ... There are some missed opportunities in the book: Piepenbring could have included whatever he and Prince discussed about spirituality, a major aspect of the artist’s life and music, and he could have encouraged Prince to elaborate further on the impact of his father’s strong religious beliefs...But so much was out of Piepenbring’s hands ... a guide, albeit a brief one. It shows that Prince is one of us — he just worked to manifest dreams that took him from the North Side of Minneapolis to the Super Bowl. It encourages us to tap into our power to design the lives we envision for ourselves and set a precedent for future generations to do the same.
