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bibliophiliac's review against another edition
informative
reflective
slow-paced
3.75
Danyel Smith has been a journalist chronicler of hip-pop and pop music for several decades, and we learn quite a bit of her personal story woven through her exposition of a number of Black-women pop artists from the Dixie Cups and Diana Ross to Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson. This is the music I grew up with; despite being white, I wanted to be in the Dixie Cups or The Supremes – those sixties girl groups were the bomb, and I never really thought about color until a racist pointed out my different color skin. The interweaving of her partial memoir and the stories of these women was not always successful; sometimes it felt like I was whipsawing between unrelated anecdotes and stories about Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston, Gladys Knight, and Leontyne Price, among others. There were also some sentences that stopped me cold because no matter how many times I re-read them I was not sure what she was saying. Nevertheless, informative and well written.
cwhalen1988's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
medium-paced
5.0
katherinethegreat's review against another edition
4.0
Soooo cool - love the intertwining of black pop stars w authors personal journey. Just very cool - learned a lot.
mktaylor15's review against another edition
emotional
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
The author writes with great knowledge but even more compelling, she writes with great emotion. She gives the stories of these amazing stars more depth with her own personal stories. The ability that this writer has been able to speak personally and intimately with some of her subjects makes this book more compelling
twinklybugs's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5