The Woman I Am by Helen Reddy
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Book Reviews of The Woman I Am
Book Review: History Repeating....(Helen Reddy meet Dorris Day)
Summary: 5 Stars
Wow, what happened to Helen (getting ripped off by someone who claimed they loved her) is EXACTLY what happened to Dorris Day. Both Helen and Dorris should get together and share "war" stories. Lesson here, people keep your professional life and your private life independent of one another. Avoid the heartache.Book Review: Not Your Typical, Formulaic Autobiography, But A Good Read
Summary: 4 Stars
I enjoyed reading this book. In fact, I couldn't put it down. Helen Reddy does a fine job of telling readers the significant events of her childhood and early-adult life in Australia, leading to her risky move as a single-parent to New York. Unfortunately, from that point on, instead of recanting the details of the years she was a big-time recording artist, she doesn't go into very much detail, i.e. How was she chosen to host the MIDNIGHT SPECIAL? What was it like on the set? How did she choose which songs to record?
I applaud her decision not to mention her ex-husbands by name--why give them undeserved press? However, "Husband Number Two" and his drug abuse must have played a significant role in shaping her career. I wanted more specifics of the abuses, her perceived weaknesses in enabling his continued abuse, etc.
The book takes a strange detour about 2/3 of the way through, when Helen talks about her successes tracing her family roots, and then really goes "Jackie Stallone" with her experiences with hypnotherapy. Interesting stuff, but probably better served as a separate written work.
In conclusion, the book is an engaging and worthy read that has my mind dancing with ideas triggered by her experiences with reincarnation, deja vu, and hypnotherapy.
Book Review: Helen Reddy The Woman I Am Gets My Vote
Summary: 4 Stars
I overall liked the book. I was glad to read her side of things. I found it over all very interesting. I in general like to read Autobiographies. I guess the fan side of me was a little disappointed that there wasn't more details in some areas, but if you got the jist of Helen's kind of philosophy of life you can understand why she decided to leave some details out. Even though she disclosed that there had been some abuse in her relationships a person who has compassion doesn't always feel compelled to slam that person, if that person has moved on with their lives and that also ties into the healing process. And also addiction is a illness. I found it admirable that she didn't mention every little detail about her ex-husbands and was a little sad that she wasn't able to have a man in her life that was there for her long term. But most important I guess was finding out that she is happy with herself and her family and her second career. I do kinda agree with some who mentioned that she might want to consider writing a book soley about the hypnotherapy , because those who are interested in that I think would get alot of good insight she seems to know her stuff. Thanks Helen for a interesting book!Book Review: Would make a great VH1 Behind The Music
Summary: 3 Stars
In the time-honored tradition of celebrity memoir, Helen Reddy's The Woman I Am is utterly scannable without worrying itself with soul searching or excessive detail. I nonetheless studied it like it was the Torah. Reddy's story, however, is more interesting than the one presented in this tome: a young, divorced Australian single mother with a pretty voice & dreams of stardom comes to America, becomes first Australian to win a Grammy Award & host an American television show, writes THE anthem of the feminist movement (which is still being sampled & covered -- including an amusing revision as a jingle for a chain of fast food restaurant, I Am Man), privately battles Addison's disease (still not sure what that is), parts company with record label after the hits stop happening, loses an unspecified fortune when her addict husband/manager embezzles her earnings (some $30 million, if you believe Julia Phillips account in You'll Never Eat Lunch In This Town Again), manages to find the will to divorce him AND pay off the debts he'd saddled her with (hear her ROAR!), retires from the showbiz racket and becomes a hynotherapist living off an AFTRA pension. What a ride.
What's the tell-tale sign of a cheap autobiography? No index! So it's not surprising that there is a dearth of detail. Her husbands, for example, are never even referred to by name -- Number One, Number Two, Number Three. (Taking feminism a little far, don't you think?) Reddy goes on ad nauseum (charts and everything!) about her interest in geneology and New Age mysticism, but it is her body of recorded work -- a multiplatinum greatest hits package, for heavens sake! -- for which she will be most remembered, yet she treats it almost in passing, perhaps because her meteoric rise coincided with the deaths of both her parents. Still, I found myself wanting to know what were her recording sessions like? How did it FEEL to be #1. Did she have anxiety about the winning streak coming to an end? (There are a number of hits -- big ones, too -- that don't even get a mention, such as Harriet Schock's Ain't No Way To Treat A Lady). She alludes to jealous, verbally abusive husband Number Two but is short on specifics, except to allege that after their split, people wouldn't hire her for fear he would show up with a shotgun. (So he was violent as well?) How much responsibility for the downward spiral of her career does Reddy herself cop to simply by virtue of being passively acquiescent to her handlers? And after two marriages to abusive men, what was her state of mind when she married her third? (Fat chance of finding out here!) Husband Number Three comes and goes with no description whatsoever. (How did they meet? Where did they marry? What led to divorce?) Poof, he appears, then poof, he's gone. (I think he was a musician in her band in the early 90's -- seem to remember something to that effect the one & only time I ever saw one of her concerts, which was excellent, by the way.) It dawned on me when reading about her early life as a culture shocked single mother first trying to find her footing in America, or later on as a stalwart who outsmarts an unscrupulous concert promoter attempting to stiff her out of her fee, that Reddy has written the basis for a one-woman show.
SERVING SUGGESTION: Any one of the number of Reddy's greatest hits packages.
Book Review: Mediocre autobiography
Summary: 3 Stars
I guess I expected more from a name that loomed so large during the years I was growing up in the 1970s. I admire Helen for standing by her principles and for her spiritual beliefs (though they're different than my own). But this memoir had a lot of chronological holes, a lot of new-age philosophy and when it does muster some force, it stops short of really landing a punch. (Three husbands referred to as NUMBERS? C'mon!) A much better example of a recent celebrity memoir is Teri Garr's autobiography.