So incredibly sad, she needed a mother and a therapist and she got the opposite her whole life. This is not well written, and not thoughtful or introspective as you might expect, especially the first half feels like short little answers you'd give for a magazine article or something. But it's still good for her story to be out there, and for us to take compassion and empathy into our observance of anyone in the spotlight. ( )

You know how it's often a bad sign when a blockbuster movie is in production and someone new is brought in to do script re-writes? This slim book had three separate ghostwriters. Three! Finding that out explained a lot.

Look, I'm very glad that Britney Spears has escaped what was clearly an abusive legal conservatorship and that she is now better able to live her life on her own terms, but this is not a well-written book. It didn't feel like I was reading about the traumatic experiences Spears has had, and her reflections on them, so much as a manifestation of that trauma. There's no analytical depth here, but in a way that felt less like Spears was boundary keeping and more that she just doesn't have the emotional maturity needed for true self-reflection. She's a woman in her 40s but she sounds like a teenager. The writing is repetitive and contradictory, and while it's great that Spears feels more capable of sharing her own perspective and experiences, she comes across as a fairly textbook example of an unreliable narrator.

Spears also needs to have some friend around her who can say "Girl, no." Who thought that, after all of the Crazy Britney media narratives of the '00s that this book is trying to refute, it was a good idea for her to publish a memoir in which she says things like "I've always been almost disturbingly empathic. What people are feeling in Nebraska, I can subconsciously feel even though I'm thousands of miles away"? Girl, no.

(Justin Timberlake: Christ, what an asshole.) ( )

Britney did a great job telling her story, from childhood through her conservatorship. I am glad that Britney is finally free to live her life and is no longer under the thumb of her family.

I also learned that she has a brother, who knew!?! ( )

Do I love Britney? Yes absolutely. Did I learn a lot about her experiences and her emotions throughout her life including the trauma she endured? Yes and it was incredibly eye opening. Was it my style of writing? No and that’s what had me stuck. It felt more like a conversation, which would be better if I had listened to an audiobook rather than reading a physical copy. But I still love Britney nonetheless. ( )

Heartbreaking. ( )