Self-contained, carefully manicured and ultimately sad ... Seeks, somewhat unsuccessfully, to place Presley at the center of her own story ... Though it is absorbing, Softly, as I Leave You feels like it was written by someone whose desire to keep up appearances has won out over her desire to be known.
The sap starts flowing in the prologue ... Unguarded ... The later pages of Softly, as I Leave You don’t pull the reader in the way that hooky prologue does. There’s little to love in the description of one celebrity tribute or awards ceremony, much less many ... Writers should do what the best pop stars have always done: deliver the goods and exit the venue, leaving their fans to dream.
