Britney Spears’s latest memoir, “The Woman In Me,” is an emotion-filled novel about Spears’s struggles with family, womanhood, and motherhood.
I enjoyed the detail of Spears’s recollection of childhood memories, sharing happier memories of her great-grandmother and other women in her family while also sharing the hardships of undergoing a cycle of abuse within the men in her family.
She also writes about the development of her career: starting from simple talent shows, to her role on “The Mickey Mouse Club” series, and then to the start of her singing career. It was interesting to read about her journey to stardom. Seeing how her parents profited off of their own daughter really made me empathize with her story.
As Spears became more famous and did more interviews, she recalled the difference between questions for her versus her male peers. She described how she would be asked about her body as a teenager while also being told that she was “setting a bad example for kids”. This made me really see how women were and still are viewed in the media as objects and forced into being both a role model to little girls but are also sexualized.
Throughout the book she brings up other women in the media, most of whom she admires and who help her through hard times. It made me really happy to read about her love and admiration for these women in the same industry when a lot of women are pit against one another.
It was really heartwarming to read about how much she loved being a mother to her two boys. She was made to seem like a bad mother in the media as she tried to make sure paparazzi didn’t get pictures of her children but her protectiveness over her kids was really shown in her words.
Reading about her divorce was even more heartbreaking with Kevin Federline, with her writing about how she wouldn’t be allowed to see her infants for weeks at a time, causing her grief. It was saddening to read about how much she loved and missed them.
Her description of the conservatorship was just as informative as it was heartbreaking. I didn’t have a lot of knowledge on the conservatorship before reading the book and after, I was filled with sympathy for what Spears went through with her father controlling everything she did.
After thirteen years in the conservatorship, Spears started to push back. It was thrilling to feel her emotions through the book as she started to take back her life.
During Spears’s fight to take her life back, both in and out of court, her words really convey a sense of suspense and when her father is finally suspended as her conservator, her relief flowed through her words.
Spears’s memoir is definitely one of my favorites now. I really love how much emotion she puts into her words, making her happiness, sadness, and anger come through the pages. Her detailing and flow in the book makes it a great read that’s easy to follow along to and connect with.
