Life with My Sister Madonna
by Christopher Ciccone, Wendy Leigh
|
List Price: Our Price: $2.73 You Save: $23.27 (90%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.01 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Life with My Sister Madonna
Book Review: Take it With a Grain of Salt....
Summary: 4 Stars
This book is somewhat interesting and a very quick read; yet, I cannot help but wonder why Christopher wrote this book. He claimed on a telelvision interview that he did not write this book to get revenge or put Madonna down. Yet that's exactly what this book feels like when you read it. In the book, Christopher comments many times about his great love for his sister, to the point where it seems like adoration or idolatry. However, he quite liberally sprinkles the book with nasty little comments and petty complaints about Madonna (ie- her mediocrity, lack of talent, terrible treatment of him, etc..) Does he realize what a backstabber he appears to be in his own book? What kind of a brother writes such negative things about a sibling, and then claims to love her so much?
Christopher comes off as a sort of aimless person with no real ambition of his own. If he didn't like Madonna's supposed ill treatment of him, why did he put up with it for so long? (I mean, toweling off your naked sweaty sister during a concert is just gross, not to mention faintly incestuous!) Why not just focus on his own career, independent of her? It makes no sense. He is trying to appear as the devoted loving brother, but I'm not buying into that. I think he enjoyed the party lifestyle and the easy access to drugs that being the close sibling of a celebrity afforded him. I think that Madonna has tried to get him help for his drug problems and he is in denial that he needs any kind of help at all. There is a point towards the end of the book where he bemoans not being able to see his niece and nephew, and claims Madonna tries to control him and does not love him as much as he loves her. Baloney! I think she loves him very much, but is unwilling to watch him ruin himself and his life with his drug habit. A person doesn't try to help someone they hate.
I'm not sure what Christopher was trying to accomplish with writing this book. It certainly was not the shocking expose that he would have you believe; unless you consider it shocking that a person with a major cocaine habit would write a book denying his drug abuse and then try to blame all of his troubles on his most succesful sister. I feel very sorry for him and the Ciccone family, but not in the "woe-is-me" way Christopher tries to engender. Take it with a grain of salt, and remember there are two sides to every story!
Book Review: Money Money Money
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm a huge Madonna fan and wanted to read how she made it to the top. I really like this book, but sometimes Christopher seems to focus too much on money.
He complains about Madonna not paying him enough, then he lists quotes from Forbes Magazine saying how many millions she made that year. Or quotes from millions she made from a concert or tour. But the biggest complaint is Madonna stopped treating him like a brother and more like hired help. This bothers Christopher, yet he doesn't quit. Why? Beacause he needs money!
He talks about being her back up dancer. He talks about how embarressed he is to be M's dresser for her tours (He does not tell his friends) She curses him out and swears to fire him if he doesn't 'hurry up!' He talks about Madonna surrounding herself around 'Yes' people all through her career. How Madonna doesn't like to be around other celebrities because then the she isn't the center of attention.
One story that sticks out for me is her weekend wedding to Guy in Scotland. Madonna owes Chris money for a job and instead of paying him, she deducts his airfare from what she owes him. TALK ABOUT CHEAP. At the dinners, Guys friends make gay jokes and references, which Madonna does not complain about. OUCH
One shocker is that Chris states 'Truth or Dare' is not real! Her conversation with Dad is staged. Chris telling Madonna about the police was real-but the director TOLD him to tell Madonna, Madonna's stories about childhood friend Moira were fake. Visiting their moms grave really pissed Chris off. He thought she went too far. I have to say I always liked the scene, it makes me cry and makes Madonna more human. Now I won't look at that scene the same again.
He says some pretty harsh things. He says she can't sing well and that she's a bad actress! OUCH!
Their working relationship is over when Guy comes into the picture. Chris does one final job for Madonna where he marks items up 30% (something designers do apparently?) Madonna finds out, calls him a liar and a thief, tells him "I made you, you're nothing without me-Don't contact me again" He then responds in an email where he blasts off all the things he had bottled up inside. (This part I find kinda funny!)
I hope he and Madonna can make peace one day and "Keep It Together" I'm sure that will be many years away.
Book Review: And they say sibling rivalry doesn't pay ...
Summary: 3 Stars
This book is an incredibly fast read. Bought it Friday night and completed it by Sunday. (With the usual weekend chores and such in between.)
It reads fast and I would definitely classify it as interesting. But you better have a really huge salt shaker sitting next to you so you can take a grain with each page.
I have no doubt Christoper's rememberances of hurts, slights, diva tempers and theatrics truly happened the way he perceives them. They don't surprise me, either. I never thought Madonna was a saint. Only an incredibly self-involved, aggressive and focused person could achieve the kind of success she's come to experience. But you get the idea every few pages that there might be a few chapters missing from this story.
For instance, Christopher willingly tells on himself (and others) when he uses drugs recreationally. And that's his justification for those times of over-indulgence: "I only did it on the weekends" .... "I only took my hits on a key, never a line" ... and so on. And then he wonders why folks gab that he has a drug habit.
And yes, the tales of him being financially taken advantage of by his sister, Demi Moore, others are a bit disconcerting. You WOULD think he should get paid better salaries ... or paid at all in some cases. But before one even gets midway through the book, you're ready to shake his shoulders and tell him he is responsible for a great part of his own unhappiness/victimhood. Grow some balls, for goodness sake, and tell these people to their faces what you're now telling the world on these pages.
Frankly, he's no more of a hypocrite than the people he disses in his book. And I really can't feel sorry for someone who doesn't look out for himself financially and then whines that he has drive a pre-owned Cadillac because he isn't rich like his sister. (At least his sis made sure she got paid.)
Like I said, I have no doubt there's a kernel of truth in every episode he relates. But perception is just that ... we see things from our own point of view. And his point of view is that his sister got more famous than he did, more rich than he is, more "everything" than him and that's just not fair. To him.
But a titillating read, nonetheless. Proves egotism runs in the family.
Book Review: They deserve each other
Summary: 2 Stars
I do hate a bully. But I hate people who wallow in their victimhood even more.
Very early in this book, Madonna summons her brother from Detroit to NYC to live with her, then when he arrives, she opens the door and says, "Hi, Christopher, you can't live here after all." A little later, she summons him there again, from Canada, to be her back-up dancer. Same scenario: the moment he arrives, the deal's off, she's replaced him that morning. This goes on and on and on and on and on. Chris just can't stop going back for more. Not even after she asks him to purchase some paintings for her and then refuses to reimburse him, *stiffing him out of his entire life savings*. He sneers at Ingrid Casares and others in Madonna's entourage for their sycophantic behavior. But who could possibly be worse in that department than he is? He drops everything in his life, repeatedly, for privileges like letting her spit her cough drops into his hand and picking up her underwear. He abandons his own ambition of being a dancer, sells his own dreams, his soul, his dignity, his self-respect, everything, to live at the epicenter of Madonna-land, following her around and working on her projects, then he whines that he has no identity that's separate from hers.
Chris, you complain that Madonna paid you so little for your interior design work. Well, at least at that point you had a portfolio of several mansions you had designed. If you were any good at it and had an ounce of self-determination, you could have used that to land other work. That way, you would have gotten paid three times as much as your sister was paying you (if we can trust your statement that she paid you a third of the industry standard) and you would have built your reputation. If you're so desperate for success and respect in your own right, why don't you go out and earn some? Instead, you're trying to make money and enjoy the spotlight via a project based on her - again.
Your sister does truly sound like a sociopathic nightmare - with all the magnetism and charm that sociopaths often exhibit, along with the complete inability to consider the well-being of anyone besides themselves. But I don't know which one of you is worse. It's too bad you went separate ways because it seems to me that you deserve each other.
Book Review: "Hick from Michigan"? Think Again!
Summary: 3 Stars
I am particuarly incensed with Mr. Ciccone's various comments about his hometown, Rochester, Michigan. I am familiar with the neighborhood. It is upper-middle class. The family home at 2036 Oklahoma is a 2,600 sq. foot brick colonial built in a semi-wooded subdivision in 1969 whose back yard abuts a golf course.
For that time--and even today--it is a large home in a *very* suburban setting. Hick town? Hardly. Pontiac, where they moved from, is urban, lower-middle class (now it is mostly poor). Any kid would have embraced such an environment. Christopher, stop feeling guilty for being white and middle-class.
Madonna's financial treatment of her family is abyssmal. It isn't mentioned that that any member of her family continually seeks handouts or is on the dole, yet what she does provide for them is disgusting. He goes out of his way to describe situations as "look what she did to me, look what she did to me!" I can't imagine that Christopher is leaving anything out in his descriptions of same either. Shameful, Madonna!
I loved that dates were included throughout. I also enjoyed reading about Madonna's real estate acquisitions and Christopher's design whirlwinds. His and Madonna's "religious enlightenment" is no surprise. How many celebrities profess to "find the answer" through some new-age religion like Kabbalah or Scientology? Enough!
I didn't understand the inconsistencies of his work arrangements. He had no problem asking for money from his siter for any of the jobs he performed, but when Demi Moore asked him to decorate he does not sit down with her or send her a contract (as he previously stated all decorators do and as he faxed to Madonna) or discuss his terms? Instead he shops at IKEA, ships her a houseful of assembly-required items and leaves her to her own devices. Sounds like erratic behavior from someone under the influence of something to me.
A better editor would have caught the numerous errors/typos I did. Additionally, I grew tiresome of the "knife in the gut"s, "at last"s (three on p. 330 alone!) and the back and forth in the relationship when you know he will "acquiesce". It is difficult to sympathize with someone who keeps going back for more. Also, an index would have been helpful.