Review: The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish

The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish    

Published: December 5, 2017

Publisher: Gallery Books

Format: audiobook via Overdrive

Rating: 3/5

Synopsis

Growing up in one of the poorest neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, Tiffany learned to survive by making people laugh. If she could do that, then her classmates would let her copy their homework, the other foster kids she lived with wouldn’t beat her up, and she might even get a boyfriend. Or at least she could make enough money—as the paid school mascot and in-demand Bar Mitzvah hype woman—to get her hair and nails done, so then she might get a boyfriend.

None of that worked (and she’s still single), but it allowed Tiffany to imagine a place for herself where she could do something she loved for a living: comedy.

Tiffany can’t avoid being funny—it’s just who she is, whether she’s plotting shocking, jaw-dropping revenge on an ex-boyfriend or learning how to handle her newfound fame despite still having a broke person’s mind-set. Finally poised to become a household name, she recounts with heart and humor how she came from nothing and nowhere to achieve her dreams by owning, sharing, and using her pain to heal others.

By turns hilarious, filthy, and brutally honest, The Last Black Unicorn shows the world who Tiffany Haddish really is—humble, grateful, down-to-earth, and funny as hell. And now, she’s ready to inspire others through the power of laughter.

My Thoughts

My thoughts on this book was so-so. There were some parts that I loved, such as her determination in making it as a comic. She never let anything or anyone knock her from her goals. I also liked how she always worked hard in life and never letting her bad situations define her. However, there were some parts I felt like she was cruel. The way she made fun of people, in my opinion, didn’t sit right with me. What I loved the most were the stories I felt were she let her true self shine. When she was talking about her mom I felt I was seeing the real Tiffany. I also enjoyed her stories of meeting Will and Jada Smith that was so funny I couldn’t stop laughing. All in all, this was an okay read for me. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it either. There were parts that I absolutely loved and others I could’ve done without. This is one read that I feel like is up to the individual to decide if they want to read it or not.

Review: We're Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

We’re Going to Need More Wine by Gabrielle Union

Published: October 17, 2017

Publisher: Dey Street Books

Format: audiobook via Overdrive

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

In this moving collection of thought-provoking essays infused with her unique wisdom and deep humor, Union uses that same fearlessness to tell astonishingly personal and true stories about power, color, gender, feminism, and fame. Union tackles a range of experiences, including bullying, beauty standards, and competition between women in Hollywood, growing up in white California suburbia and then spending summers with her black relatives in Nebraska, coping with crushes, puberty, and the divorce of her parents. Genuine and perceptive, Union bravely lays herself bare, uncovering a complex and courageous life of self-doubt and self-discovery with incredible poise and brutal honesty. Throughout, she compels us to be ethical and empathetic and reminds us of the importance of confidence, self-awareness, and the power of sharing truth, laughter, and support.

My Thoughts

I must admit I’m not the biggest fan of Gabrielle Union but when I saw this was available and heard good things about it I wanted to see how this was for myself and after I was done I had a new found respect for Gabrielle Union. I found this collection of essays enlightening and seeing her an in a whole new light. Seeing how she grew up and making a name for herself in the industry was inspiring. I also found some of the stories so funny that I was literally in tears, but it’s the ones where I found that she let us in those turned out to be the most touching ones. The stories that dealt with her family and especially when she tells us about being sexually assaulted those are the ones I felt I saw and understood the real Gabrielle. She always came across as guarded to me in a sense and reading about these stories I understood why. The fact that she let everything go in this book I felt she came across so strong. Regardless if you like her or not you will find out some interesting things about her and will definitely see her in an entirely new way. This is one read that is utterly so entertaining that you can't help but to fall in love with her.

Review: Trouble Maker by Leah Remini

Trouble Maker by Leah Remini

Publisher: Ballantine Books

Published: November 3, 2015

Format: audiobook via Overdrive

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Leah Remini has never been the type to hold her tongue. That willingness to speak her mind, stand her ground, and rattle the occasional cage has enabled this tough-talking girl from Brooklyn to forge an enduring and successful career in Hollywood. But being a troublemaker has come at a cost.

That was never more evident than in 2013 when Remini loudly and publicly broke with the Church of Scientology. Now, in this frank, funny, poignant memoir, the former King of Queens star opens up about that experience for the first time, revealing the in-depth details of her painful split with the church and its controversial practices.

Indoctrinated into the church as a child while living with her mother and sister in New York, Remini eventually moved to Los Angeles, where her dreams of becoming an actress and advancing Scientology’s causes grew increasingly intertwined. As an adult, she found the success she’d worked so hard for, and with it a prominent place in the hierarchy of celebrity Scientologists alongside people such as Tom Cruise, Scientology’s most high-profile adherent. Remini spent time directly with Cruise and was included among the guests at his 2006 wedding to Katie Holmes.

But when she began to raise questions about some of the church’s actions, she found herself a target. In the end, she was declared by the church to be a threat to their organization and therefore a “Suppressive Person,” and as a result, all of her fellow parishioners—including members of her own family—were told to disconnect from her. Forever.

My Thoughts

By now we have all heard at least something about Leah Remini and her relationship with Scientology but I wanted to know a little more and straight from her mouth so I decided to check out this audiobook. I loved hearing her story from her and her voice just cracks me up. However, I really did find her story fascinating and not only did we get her Scientology story but we also got her life story which I was really drawn to.

We heard how she got into the religion and her story of growing up, her relationship with her dad and how she got her start in acting. I must admit I liked hearing about her fellow famous Scientologists especially some of the events involving Tom Cruise and his wedding to Katie Holmes, I just found all that so funny and wondering if all of that could be possible it just seemed so far fetched. All in all, it was an intriguing read one that I found engaging and really interesting.

Review: Scars of Sweet Paradise- The Life and Times of Janis Joplin by Alice Echols

Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin by Alice Echols

Published: February 15, 2000

Format: Bought

Publisher: Picador

Rating: 4/5

Synopsis

Janis Joplin was the skyrocket chick of the sixties, the woman who broke into the boys' club of rock and out of the stifling good-girl femininity of postwar America. With her incredible wall-of-sound vocals, Joplin was the voice of a generation, and when she OD'd on heroin in October 1970, a generation's dreams crashed and burned with her. Alice Echols pushes past the legacy Joplin-the red-hot mama of her own invention-as well as the familiar portrait of the screwed-up star victimized by the era she symbolized, to examine the roots of Joplin's musicianship and explore a generation's experiment with high-risk living and the terrible price it exacted.

My Thoughts

For those of you who don’t know me I’m a HUGE music fan. I think of myself as an old soul though. I love and adore music from the 60’s and 70’s. Awhile back I was obsessed with music bios; I read anything I could get my hands on. Like I said before I couldn’t get enough of anything from that time period so I went out and got a ton of stuff from the musicians at that time.

I’ve loved Janis Joplin instantly. I loved her attitude, her voice, her love of old soul and jazz plus she’s from Texas!! Yet as much as she was awesomely gifted too so many people, there was no denying she was a tortured soul. While there are a ton of books on Janis I’m glad I picked this one. I liked how this one was a balanced book. Some bios tend to be one-sided, they are mainly gossipy or they don’t really give you an insight on the person not just the musician. I like how I got both. They were a ton of things I didn’t know about her personal life and some things I thought were true were revealed to be false. I felt I got a sense of the stripped down Janis and not just a glamorized version of what people want her to be remembered by. 

Although no one can honestly say why Janis felt the way she did we do get bits and pieces on why she felt so alone and her sense of not belonging and not feeling good enough.

I’ve read enough music bios to know that it’s not the fame that brings these artists down but the pain and rejection they suffered long before that caused them to have problems. Most of them think money, fame and drugs can make up for it but we all know it never does.

Alice Echols in my opinion has written the most balanced bio I’ve read out there. Not just on Janis but generally speaking. It’s straight to the point and pulls no punches. It doesn’t give a fairy tale illusion on Janis’s life but a real account of it, good and bad. If you want to read a good to honest book on one of  music’s iconic gods then this one is for you.

Review: Turn around Bright Eyes by Rob Sheffield

Turn Around Bright Eyes by Rob Sheffield
Expected Publication: August 6, 2013
Source: ARC via publisher
Publisher: It Books
Rating 4/5

Summary via Goodreads

An emotional journey of hilarity and heartbreak with a karaoke soundtrack, in the spirit of Rob Sheffield's bestselling Love Is a Mix Tape.

Turn around Bright Eyes picks up Sheffield's story right after Love Is a Mix Tape. He is a young widower devastated by grief, trying to build a new life in a new town after his wife's death. As a writer for Rolling Stone, he naturally takes solace in music. But that's when he discovers the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, and despite the fact that he can't carry a tune, he begins to find his voice. His karaoke obsession takes him to some strange places, whether that means singing a Frank Sinatra song in a senior-citizen community in Florida, attempting a Merle Haggard classic at a cowboy saloon in the Mojave desert, or clearing the room at an after-hours dive in Chinatown. But he finds the music leads him to the most surprising place of all--a new life and a new love.

Turn around Bright Eyes is a story about finding the courage to start over, move on, and rock the mike. It's about falling in love and navigating your way through adult romance. It's about how you can learn the weirdest things about yourself just by butchering a Hall & Oates song at 2 A.M. under fluorescent lights in a room full of strangers. It's about how songs get tangled up in our deepest emotions, evoking memories of the past while inspiring hope for the future. But most of all, it's a book about all the strange ways music brings people together.

My Thoughts

Turn around Bright Eyes is yet again another fabulous read by Rob Sheffield. I truly enjoy the way Rob writes about his love of music and how a single song can always bring you back to certain moment in one’s life. In this novel he explores his love for karaoke and the songs, good or bad, that have become intertwined into his life. He speaks of friends, his family and how he found love again after his wife’s death.

I’ve been a huge fan of Rob Sheffield’s ever since I read his articles in Rolling Stone magazine and especially after his first novel, Love is a Mix Tape. This man’s knowledge of music amazes me. Every song isn’t just a song to him. It’s a memory, a story or most importantly a slice of life.

While my heart will always have a special place for Love is a Mix Tape, Turn around Bright Eyes doesn’t disappoint by far. His novels make me so aware of why I love music.  Music to me isn’t just noise in the background; it’s so much more than that. It’s the thing I live for, besides books. It’s the thing that picks me up when I’m having a bad day and it’s also the one thing that can make a good day even better. Music to me is simply embedded in my soul. It’s a part of me, just like the blood that runs through my veins. It’s the one thing I begin and end my day with each and every single day.

So this is why I love this book. I simply GET IT. I get how someone can take something as simple as a single song or music and see how everything in this world can somehow always come back to it. I highly encourage any music lover to put up Rob Sheffield’s books, you won’t be disappointed. You will discover some great tracks and stories that you can relate to and some that will indeed touch your soul.

Review: Girls Like Us: Carloe King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon by Shelia Weller

Girls Like Us: Carole King, Joni Mitchell, Carly Simon-and the Journey of a Generation
By Shelia Weller
Published: April 14, 2009
Format: Purchased copy
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Rating: 4/5 stars

Summary via Goodreads

A groundbreaking and irresistible biography of three of America's most important musical artists -- Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon -- charts their lives as women at a magical moment in time.

Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon remain among the most enduring and important women in popular music. Each woman is distinct. Carole King is the product of outer-borough, middle-class New York City; Joni Mitchell is a granddaughter of Canadian farmers; and Carly Simon is a child of the Manhattan intellectual upper crust. They collectively represent, in their lives and their songs, a great swath of American girls who came of age in the late 1960s. Their stories trace the arc of the now mythic sixties generation -- female version -- but in a bracingly specific and deeply recalled way, far from cliché. The history of the women of that generation has never been written -- until now, through their resonant lives and emblematic songs.

Girls Like Us is an epic treatment of midcentury women who dared to break tradition and become what none had been before them -- confessors in song, rock superstars, and adventurers of heart and soul.

My Thoughts

I've had my eye on this book for a long time. Being a huge music fan I love reading music bios, and my favorites are the ones about classic rock/folk singers from the 60’s and 70’s. I don’t know why but I just really love that era of music. I guess mainly because in my eyes that’s when music was at its finest. There was so much going on in the world at that time that its affects definitely made a huge impact on the world of music.

So when I saw this book focusing on my three favorite singers how could I resist? I went into it mainly wanting to read up on Joni and Carole but it’s the story of Carly that really took me by surprised. What I really loved about this book that it dug in deep into each of these ladies lives. It had a great balance of their background, how they made their way to do what they loved, and yes all the men in their lives. It wasn't too gossipy which bios can be.

If there was one thing that truly took away from this great book it would have to be the ever ending footnotes! I mean I’m one of those nerdy chicks who loves looking at footnotes and discovering more facts but serious there is a thing called “overdoing it.” I mean at over 600 pages I’m really thinking a quarter of this book is footnotes. Ok maybe not but it feels like it. Some pages are literally half in footnotes. As much as I had a problem with that it couldn’t take away for the love I have for this wonderfully written book.

This is for anyone who loves music or is interested in learning how women played a huge part in the 60’s rock era.

Review: Talking to Girls about Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield

Talking to Girls about Duran Duran by Rob Sheffield

Published: June 15, 2010
Format: purchased paperback
Publisher: Dutton
Rating: 3/5

Summary via Goodreads

In Talking to Girls about Duran Duran, Sheffield shares the soundtrack to his eighties adolescence. When he turned 13 in 1980, Rob Sheffield had a lot to learn about women, love, music and himself, and in Talking to Girls About Duran Duran we get a glimpse into his transformation from pasty, geeky "hermit boy" into a young man with his first girlfriend, his first apartment, and a sense of the world. These were the years of MTV and John Hughes movies; the era of big dreams and bigger shoulder pads; and, like any all-American boy, this one was searching for true love and maybe a cooler haircut. It's all here: Inept flirtations. Dumb crushes. Deplorable fashion choices. Members Only jackets. Girls, every last one of whom seems to be madly in love with the bassist of Duran Duran. Sheffield's coming-of-age story is one that we all know, with a playlist that any child of the eighties or anyone who just loves music will sing along with. These songs-and Sheffield's writing-will remind readers of that first kiss, that first car, and the moments that shaped their lives.

My Thoughts

I must admit I was a tad disappointed with this after reading the wonderfully written Love is a Mix Tape. While his first novel was more of a love story this book focuses more of him growing up in the 80’s. Being a child of the 80’s I can totally relate every pop culture references and music that he talked about. It was definitely like traveling back in time. Rob Sheffield takes us back basically to the beginning of his love for music. I love how he can identify moments in his life with a simple song. I mean, can’t we all do that? I know I can hear a certain song and be instantly transmitted to single point in my life. I love that about music, it's the soundtrack to our lives.

That's why my favorite parts about his books are the playlists. While I knew most of the songs, it was a nice surprise to see some songs I didn’t know or completely forgot about. I love researching and tracking down new songs. So I love that he puts all these “mix tapes” together for us to search out.

While I didn’t have that emotional pull like I did to his first novel, this one was good nevertheless. It’s funny and has stories that we can relate to. It will surely make you think about your past for good or bad. It shows us that coming of age we all go through the heartaches, embarrassments, and the “firsts”. While it may seems like no one “understands” us we are more alike that we can ever imagine.

WoW [26]

Waiting on Wednesday [WoW] is a weekly event hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that we’re eagerly anticipating.

This week’s WoW feature is:

Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Ritual of Love and Karaoke by Rob Sheffield

Expected Publication: August 6, 2013

Publisher: It Books

Summary via Edelweiss...

The bestselling author of Love Is a Mix Tape and Talking to Girls about Duran Duran returns with his newest, funniest, most moving book about the intersection of love, music and memories in our lives. An emotional journey of hilarity and heartbreak with a karaoke soundtrack, in the spirit of Rob Sheffield's bestselling Love Is a Mix Tape.

Turn Around Bright Eyes picks up Sheffield's story right after Love Is a Mix Tape. He is a young widower devastated by grief, trying to build a new life in a new town after his wife's death. As a writer for Rolling Stone, he naturally takes solace in music. But that's when he discovers the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, and despite the fact that he can't carry a tune, he begins to find his voice. His karaoke obsession takes him to some strange places, whether that means singing a Frank Sinatra song in a senior-citizen community in Florida, attempting a Merle Haggard classic at a cowboy saloon in the Mojave desert, or clearing the room at an after-hours dive in Chinatown. But he finds the music leads him to the most surprising place of all--a new life and a new love.

Turn Around Bright Eyes is a story about finding the courage to start over, move on, and rock the mike. It's about falling in love and navigating your way through adult romance. It's about how you can learn the weirdest things about yourself just by butchering a Hall & Oates song at 2 A.M. under fluorescent lights in a room full of strangers. It's about how songs get tangled up in our deepest emotions, evoking memories of the past while inspiring hope for the future. But most of all, it's a book about all the strange ways music brings people together.

Why I Can’t Wait....

So I’ve been checking like every day waiting and waiting to see if it was available on Edelweiss. Then last week it was there and I was pre-approved…YES!!!!!!!!!! I nearly died! I love Rob Sheffield. He is an amazing writer and if you haven’t read Love is a Mix Tape or Talking to Girls about Duran Duran you are missing out people. Maybe it’s the music nerd in me but I love the way he intertwines music in everything he writes. His books are both heart touching and funny at the same time. I’m pretty sure…no I know I will LOVE this book just as much as the others. I can’t wait to read it and share my thoughts with you.

That’s what I’m waiting for…please share yours.