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: Forgettable but fun
Summary: 3 Stars
This is far from being the most well-written book that I've read, but it does make fascinating reading, both as a fly-on-the-wall view of Madonna's life and for the very raw exposé of a highly dysfunctional brother/sister relationship. It's also rich in gossip, though not as much as I expected: a lot of famous names make appearances (Gwyneth, Demi, Warren Beatty, Kate Moss, John F Kennedy Jr etc) but you don't get much sense of what they are like. The screaming fights between Madonna and Sean Penn are described but there is less insight into her relationship with Guy Ritchie (who clearly doesn't get on with Christopher), other than it evidently being a relationship that Madonna put considerable energy and effort into.
There is nothing impartial about Christopher's account and while that's to be expected, it does get a little tiresome. He's full of anger and hurt at the way she treated him and so it never feels like a balanced interpretation of events. For example, he is very scathing about her motivations to adopt a child from Malawi (essentially he says it's about trying to one up Angelina Jolie). Nevertheless, Madonna comes across pretty much as you'd expect her to: extremely charismatic but also highly self-centered, demanding and narcissistic with little sense of how normal people behave. As an example, she invites Demi and Ashton to dinner and then tells them that she and Guy are going to the cinema but they are welcome to stay behind and make themselves at home. She uses people and then discards them, but it's also evident that everyone around her is happy to go along with this behavior.
Nor does Christopher comes across particularly well. Every job he does for Madonna is a "favor", he complains about staying in regular hotel rooms rather than suites and doesn't hold back from telling unflattering stories about supposed friends, like Trudi Styler.
The book tears along and makes a fast read. It includes a number of photographs from Madonna's childhood and early career that I had never seen before.
Book Review: 4 Stars because of great information about Madonna's private life but CHRISTOPHER IS A LOSER AND BACK STABBER....
Summary: 4 Stars
The book is alright only because it gives so many details about the Iconic Madonna's private life that nobody knows. I have been a huge Madonna fan since the 80's and everything about her life has always fascinated me. She is a pioneer at what she does and has been able to maintain that way for the last 25 years which is an extremely hard task to accomplish and no other living music star including Michael Jackson has been able to accomplish such success for so long.
I think Christopher has been a clown and a loser for all his life, always following his sister's lead and now using his only resource which is his sister's superstardom and success to make some money of his own. If he wasn't for Madonna he would probably be behind a cashier's counter at a Michigan grocery store and would never had been able to direct a world tour, design homes or even sell any of his paintings and even less to meet and hang out with so many celebrities if he wasn't Madonna's sister sorry (brother). I think he is the biggest opportunist there is. He sticks with his sister for years taking notes on everything that she does including dates and stabs her in the back to make some money.
I found very annoying that Christopher was comparing himself with Madonna all the time; saying we are both this and that and we are similar on how with think and how driven we both are. Well Chris let me tell you something. You will always live on Madonna's shadow and will never accomplish anything else after the book. So you better save and invest that money real well.
Christopher, if you really were talented at all you would have used your talents a long time ago. I mean your sister gave you a huge kick for you to succeed on your own. She gave you the opportunity to travel all over the world, to get experience decorating her homes, even introducing you to gallery owners and important people in your business and this is how you pay her? And now you claim that stabbing her was like a huge orgasm? Get a life loser.
Book Review: Indifferent?
Summary: 4 Stars
The title of this review pretty much sums it up. This is my first time ever writing a review on anything (book, cd, etc.) I feel compelled to. I'm not sure why, though. Anyhow, I was not expecting to read this book for everything the press said it would be, I wasn't interested in harming the "glorified" image I have of Madonna. YES, I AM A HUGE FAN!. Anyhow, I read a few excerpts over the internet and I have to admit it intrigued me. So much, that I rushed to ge the book. The truth needed to come out! I pretty much knew everything the book says about Madonna (insecure, egomaniac, etc.) I just chose to ignore it and focus on her music.
Interestingly, Ciccone spends the majority of the book detailing very specific financial amounts between work they conducted for each other (or rather him for her.) He spends a good majority making himself the marter when, sadly, it was always his choice to return to her "grip." Woes me, woes me, etc.
I could not put the book down! It's like someone telling you something about yourself that you know but dont want to hear. Its juicy. In particular, for me, I enjoy reading about the tour set ups, costume designs, crazy drug parties with the "famous people", and locations I have been to. In fact, I was at certain locations when either Madonna was with Christopher (I would have spelled it Chris, but he doesnt like that), or he with his celebrity friends and it is always nice to identify with something someone in the spotlight mentions.
I wonder, though, did Chris(topher) write this book himself or did he turn his personal memoirs in to Wendy Leigh whom he contributes as someone this book could not have been met to fruition. The vocabulary in this book is advanced, and I appreciate that. I just hope they came from him. This is, however, HIS memoir! A great read nonetheless; I say so because I did not want to "judge" Madonna on her personal life and this book made me think twice (or maybe even three times!)
Book Review: Not What I Expected
Summary: 3 Stars
Maybe it's all the media hype, but when I ordered this book, I expected something ... else. The story is fairly benign -- no salacious details of Madonna's affairs, certainly no mention of her women lovers like Jenny Shimizu. No real discussion of Madonna's relationship with her brothers and sisters -- one gathers she has no relationship with them at all; and given that her father still hasn't seen her adopted son David after nearly two years, she probably does not have much of one with him either.
Mostly it's a book about Christopher Ciccone and his codependent relationship with his sister. Madonna comes across as an extremely self-centered, miserly, insensitve boor who cannot maintain healthy relationships with others, and will do anything for publicity -- no surprise there. Still, the story about Madonna's scripted visit to her mother's grave for "Truth or Dare" is pretty revolting, even for her.
For his part, Christopher comes across as thoughtful, although somewhat petulant, and certainly with a sense of frustrated entitlement -- witness his continuing complaints throughout the book that when he went on tours with his sister, he never got a suite in the hotels. Mon dieu!
Or when Demi Moore apparently asked him to decorate her house for free, so he "taught her a lesson" by ordering a bunch of crap from Ikea and having it delivered to her home unassembled. Mind you, this is the same Demi Moore who used to fly him all around on a private jet and paid for his hotel rooms. You know, maybe you owed her one, Christopher.
He acknowledges that most of his professional opportunities came as a result of being Madonna's brother, although he believes his innate talents deserved recognition. And, of course, since he and Madonna are on the outs, he may not be getting much work in the future, hence the book.
All in all, this is a good book for the beach, but not much else.
Book Review: Tabloid kind of book
Summary: 1 Stars
I got this one as a gift and couldn't wait to start reading as I have been Madonna's fan for a long time.
The beginning is really promising and the expectations rise.
But when I got to the 3 chapter I began to feel tired? irritated? disappointed?
And it went on even worse with every following part.
Christopher C. is a man without balls, without strong will, with no self respect. I still can't understand why he decided to work with her (Madonna) again after she had cheated him before. After she treated him like s%$%$t.
THey are worth each other, she is obsessed with fame and he is nota better person. You can easily see that he loves to be in spotlight, to be known, to enjoy people's attention.
Moreover there is literally nothing discovering in this book, of course if you didn't know that famous people are weak, get drunk, take drugs etc.
I was also surprised by the poor quality of writing. It seemed as if I was reading a thick tabloid, with poor texts, instead of a proper piece of literature. This guy gives so many spare details (an example? who cares which car he drove to the hospital when she gave birth to Lola???? I think it took him 3 separate sentences to describe it).
And the main character - the "queen" herself (don't get me wrong, Madonna has never been my role model)? If you thought that she was as normal as one of ordinary people, than, sorry, but you are NAIVE.
She is b%%%%%chy and egocentric. But this is known.
But her new attitude (or maybe it has always been like that?) towards gay people. Thanx to the book I realized that my observations, I had done some time ago, concerning her, haven't been so wrong. She doesn't need gays anymore. She has earned enough money owe to them. Now they can go away. Just like everybody she doesn't need.
To sum up: don't waste money, go to the nearest library.