Unbeaten
by Kim Woodburn
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Book Summary Information
Author: Kim WoodburnEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2007-04-05
ISBN: 0340922222
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Hodder Pb
Book Reviews of Unbeaten
Book Review: DISTURBING
Summary: 1 Stars
It's been days since I finished reading this "autobiography," and I can't get it out of my mind. If any portion of this book is true, Kim Woodburn's life makes "Jane Eyre" look like "Pollyanna." The first half of the book, plus numerous flashbacks in adulthood focus on the physical and verbal abuse heaped on her by her unbalanced mother. Along the way she was also beaten by nuns, her mother's live-in lover (who Kim professes to still be fond of), and her first husband. If I missed anyone else who hit her, mea culpa. Then there was the intended sexual abuse by her father whose house she returned to numerous times when she was between jobs and apartments.
Somehow in there, despite almost no formal education, she managed to move in and out of jobs and finally be qualified enough to become the manager of a number of different retail concerns. She always managed to save money and buy a house only to be cheated out of all by some man.
Also, throughout her journey to enlightenment she somehow avoided learning about birth control, VD, and ordinary self-preservation. I do not intend to include spoilers, but can someone explain to me how she was able to share a house with her estranged husband, while they were in the middle of a divorce, and a) sleep naked, and b) not lock her bedroom door?
I also have to wonder if they have any laws in that country in regard to an incident that occurred to her at the end of her relationship with a live-in boyfriend. This particularly lurid spoiler I found profoundly disturbing. My God, she makes Olan in "The Good Earth" look like a slacker.
A previous reviewer remarked on Kim's triumph over adversity. Why didn't we hear anything about the sweater company she started? She makes a vague reference to it, also about appearing on television to promote her company, but that's it. Any information that might have been of a positive note was glossed over.
She did admit to having acting lessons. I'm disappointed to hear that. Somehow I thought her and Aggie's reactions on "How Clean is Your House?" were genuine. The show is less fun to watch now that I can't decide if she is acting, delusional, self-promoting, or "Sybil."
If you like "How Clean is Your House?," buy the eponymous book, and forget "Unbeaten."
Summary of Unbeaten
For Kim Woodburn finding fame in her 60s in the smash hit television series How Clean is Your House? with fellow dust-buster Aggie Mackenzie is like living a fairytale. Often she has simply wished that she had never been born, for Kim has overcome horrific emotional and physical abuse both at the hands of her alcoholic mother and her philandering, sexually abusive father. In her brave and revealing story Kim's memories of growing up are not of love and cuddles, but of beatings and random cruelty. Shuttled between the brutal houses of her warring parents, a succession of miserable children's homes and a grim convent -- Kim's past has cast a long shadow over her life. But just before her sixteenth birthday she finally made her escape. It has taken decades of hard work, and a wonderfully happy marriage to conquer depression but now she has emerged unbowed and unbeaten as Britain's Queen of Clean.Entertainers Books
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