Book Review: Through The Storm by Lynne Spears
Posted by: WordVixen in book recommendations, reviewsI know that this isn’t my normal fare for reading. For one thing, it’s a memoir, at least of sorts. For another, it’s the memoir of the mother of Britney Spears.
I admit that I’ve been one of those people who rolled my eyes and talked disparagingly of both Britney and her mother. Though, I had slightly more to back me up as I was once friends with someone who was friends with NSYNC.
There have been a lot of rumors about this book. The one that seems to be the most common, is also the one that I was the most familiar with- that it was a parenting book. Remember how that was the big rumor just before Jamie Lynn got/announced that she was pregnant? Turns out that was wrong. No instructions or advice included at all, unless you count the unspoken “do not repeat after me”.
The other big rumor was that Through The Storm (by Lynne Spears and cowritten by Lorilee Craker) was a tell all. Or a memoir that still had racy, behind-the-scenes info on one or another of Lynne’s kids. Again, not so.
She does talk about her children at length. Mainly, what they were like as youngsters. Surprisingly, there’s more in the book about her marriage, and her family life when Britney and Jamie Lynn were toddlers (her oldest, Bryan, seems to have come at a time when she was the most obsessed with her marriage). A more accurate description of Through The Storm would be as the memoir of someone who survived marriage with an abusive alcoholic. And even then, details are spared.
Since this is a writing blog, and most of you guys are writers, you’ll probably understand when I say this. The single annoying thing in this book, is that the ending of almost every single section had a variation on “but that would change all too soon”. Grating. Seriously. Had I not received this book direct from a publisher that I highly respect in exchange for a review? It would have been against the wall. We know it all changed! We all know what happened! We just don’t know why!
Nevertheless, Through The Storm was interesting, and eye opening. I do have a bit of compassion for Britney and her mother (though in B’s case, it’s more the kind of caring that you have for a friend that perpetuates the cycle of having abusive boyfriends and then complains about it- ya just wanna smack ‘em) now that I’ve read it. And I can recommend it to those who are interested in people’s lives (all of you, since you all read blogs- it’s kinda the same thing), but not for those looking for gossip worthy info, or an interesting read in itself. It is interesting, but for $25 you can get Starbuck’s for a week while you scan your feeds.
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Not that I particularly want to read it, but would the book be useful for helping a writer understand the effects of a parent’s alcoholism on children’s development or the spouse’s personality? Or doesn’t Mrs. Spears have that much insight into things? Does she at least understand that her kids are seriously messed up?
I don’t think it would be all that useful for that reason, but I think it would be great for setting up a story line where someone was under someone else’s complete control. The portion of the book that involved Sam Lufti was absolutely chilling.
But no. Not much insight. Her main thing was that she let other people control her childrens’ careers, which ended up cutting a lot of her influence out of their lives.
Personally, after reading the book, it sounds like Britney mainly just has “daddy issues”, with her father being mostly absent, and often abusive and alcoholic. You can see it all through the book. But Lynne herself doesn’t seem to recognize it.
I’m planning to write up a proper review for the site I review for, but when I’m done, I could send it to you if you think it would help at all.
Thanks, but you don’t have to bother. I’m not planning any such book right now. I was curious and thought your answer would be useful to other writers.
Sure, no problem!