The Sporty One

I was a huge fan of the Spice Girls as a kid, just before it became so uncool to love pop music and cool to hate on all those “prefab” bands. It was great to revisit their story now especially through Chisholm's point of view and to have that image of the Spice Girls as a commercial product without substance pretty much torn to shreds.

This book is also in part an exploration of how toxic the culture of the time was regarding how we dealt with celebrities and their bodies and the toll it took on Chisholm's mental health, it's sometimes quite raw but there's an overall sense that she's made peace with her life so it doesn't make for a super daunting read.

Spicemania hit when my daughter was 7 years old, and their two albums were on constant replay for a year or so, until she moved on to Britney and April. So I view the Spice Girls with a fond nostalgia and will admit to a mild curiosity about what it was like on the inside of the mania. The Sporty One is pretty much a standard, predictable “Behind the Music” memoir. Melanie Chisholm grew up poor, wanting to be a famous entertainer, and she became one-fifth of a worldwide phenomenon too quickly. Within two years the group imploded and Mel C had to put her life back together again. She's open and honest about her struggles with depression and an eating disorder, and she never throws any shade at the other Spice Girls. However, I think she overestimates the effect that the Spice Girls had on the world. I didn't consider them particularly empowering or inspirational; they made fun music for a few years (and Mel C was clearly the strongest singer/dancer of the group), but they weren't Nelson freaking Mandela. Recommended if you thought the Spiceworld movie actually had some redeeming qualities.