The Woman in Me

Who needs [b:The Yellow Wallpaper 99300 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Stories Charlotte Perkins Gilman https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327909237l/99300.SY75.jpg 1467808] when you have The Woman in Me?I hate how many celebrity memoirs I've read this year despite proclaiming I am not a celebrity memoir person. But I cannot get around the fact that this was so, so good. You know what is the opposite of so, so good? The Spears family. And also the paparazzi. And also Justin Timberlake. And also Kevin Federline. And also Ryan Seacrest. I've spoiled specifics below, but I would go back to college to teach a gender studies course with this as the text. Major themes include bodily autonomy, financial independence, privacy, and carceral approaches to mental illness.Britney Spears talks about the tumultuous environment of her childhood home, with a simultaneously overbearing yet absent alcoholic father. She talks about generations of abuse, including sending (multiple) women separated from their children away to psychiatric institutions that hand out lithium like free candy.Entertainment media zeroed in on Britney's virginity, yet called her a slut for the way she dressed. People had contempt for Britney when she was a skinny young teenager, saying she wasn't a good role model. It's almost like people were angry at themselves for finding Britney so desirable. They were agitated to their core that she was so successfully hot to them.Once she became pregnant for the first time, the narrative shifted to cast her as slovenly, unstable, unfit, and irresponsible. Once her body became less desirable to the masses, people villainized what those changes to her body meant: motherhood. When she was still a child herself, she was a threat to everyone else's kids. When she became pregnant, she was a threat to her own kids.Either way, Britney says it best: “People seemed to experience my body as public property.”She underwent an unsafe and painful abortion she did not want, and in return the man whose baby she was ready to have lied to the world about her being unfaithful to him. It was her fault when she got cheated on, and it was her fault when he lied about her cheating on him. Man after man rides her coattails to success only to feel threatened by what they were capitalizing off of the whole time.All of this is easier to talk about than the conservatorship because holy shit the conservatorship. Suddenly I cannot talk about this anymore it is too grim. Very good book though.Well-written and devastating. Michelle Williams' narration is excellent. For fans of (I realize this is a weird mix) [b:I'm Glad My Mom Died 59364173 I'm Glad My Mom Died Jennette McCurdy https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1649286799l/59364173.SY75.jpg 93537110], [b:Betty 48564330 Betty Tiffany McDaniel https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1572992238l/48564330.SX50.jpg 73891626], or [a:Taylor Jenkins Reid 6572605 Taylor Jenkins Reid https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1645653842p2/6572605.jpg].