Customer Reviews

Goddess

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Thoiugh not the first, best or most intriguing of the groundbreaking female pop stars, Madonna has some sort of hold over the American attention, possibly because she changed her image so often. But don't expect an easy read in Barbara Victor's "Goddess" -- this one is less than divine.

The book opens with Madonna preparing for her role in the musical "Evita," based on the life of Eva Peron. This turned out to be the turning point of Madonna's life: It was in the period when she became pregnant, cleaned up her act somewhat, and made her first (and so far, only) acclaimed movie.

Then it bobs back to the arrive of the immigrant Ciccone family in the United States, the early days of Madonna's parents, and the tragedies that her family never recovered from. From there, it tracks her as she became a struggling dancer, whose sexual dancepop became a massive hit. After a disastrous short marriage, many boyfriends (and girlfriends), a porn book, and an unfortunate movie career, she finally settled down with director Guy Richie to become the not-so-quintessential British wife and mother.

Madonna is a bit of a love-her-or-hate-her person, especially since she has none of the warmth, stability or humour of similar pop stars like Deborah Harry. So it's not surprising that Victor's biography will probably inspire ire or delight in anyone who reads it... assuming they can get through it at all.

There's a strange split in Victor's opinions on Madonna. She compares Madonna to the ancient virgin goddesses (huh?), and excuses much of her behavior. Then she ruthlessly shows Madonna's shallowness, sexual obsessiveness and arrogance. How? By the most damning evidence: her own words. Victor uses interview quotes, video footage, and even a behind-the-scenes special where she openly mocks and humiliates a childhood friend.

There is some interesting information, such as analysis of Madonna's songs and music videos, although Victor (like Madonna herself) focuses way too much on the loss of her mother. And were Victor able to cobble together all this information into a straightforward biography, she might be a pretty good writer.

Unfortunately, Victor is actually a pretty bad writer. There's a lot of meaty information here, but no linear series of events. It's very distracting to jerk the readers from Madonna's toddlerhood to her adult career, sometimes in the same page. But that's what Victor does. Even worse, this choppy biography is laced with endless psychoanalyzation, and a tendency to demonize or beatify people as Madonna sees them, not as they actually are.

Split adoration/disdain and a choppy narrative make "Goddess" a chore rather than a guilty pleasure, as a "scandalous" biography ought to be. Whatever you think of Madonna, this "Goddess" is unholy.

Like a horrific train wreck that you can't take your eyes off, I could not put down this 400 page book written by Barbra Victor about Madonna. The feeling I'm left with? Like I've been punched in the gut and am left trying to catch my breath. I can not belive that such a poorly put together and unimaginitive "biography" is actually in print and being sold. It was nothing more than an endless, tiresome commentary about what and where Barbara Victor assumes is the life of Madonna based on circumstances throughout various stages. This biography boldly states the facts of the life of Madonna based on the assumptions of the author. The book does not flow, you are jerked back and forth between commentary and background information on what Miss Victor deems to be relative facts surrounding what she assumes to be life events. In all, I don't feel I have learned anything new about Madonna - I feel that I have wasted 20 hours reading a tiresome commentary that could have been a 3 page magazine article. I don't see the book based on fact and do not rely on it as a credible source of the life of this star. The book could have flowed better, could have been written with depth, could have been written from facts instead of just opinion. This tiresome effort has given me, for the first time in my life, an author whose books/works I refuse to read in the future. If this is all that Madonna has to worry about when faced with a tell-all biography written about her, then I am sure she sleeps well at night.

This is the masters of Madonna's history. It's full of all the juicy details one would expect to read in a book about a mega star like Madonna. She's truly a one of a kind and this book tells all you'd want to know. I truly enjoyed every minute I spent with it.

This is one of the most unusual show business biographies I've ever read. I loved it. Somehow this writer makes you understand how a phenomenon like Madonna happens, and then makes you feel as if you really are inside Madonna's head, experiencing her life as she lived it. The book has lots of gossip, but it has something I liked even more, which is a bigger picture of how Madonna reflects what's happening in the world around her, which made me understand completely the loyalty of her fans. The personal story is really moving. I especially liked the section about how the loss of Madonna's mother affected her and the direction of her life. Most books about stars don't really tell you much about the star, or how we relate to them. This one does both. It's fun to read and when I finished it I felt like every second had been worth it.

For any Madonna fan, or anyone fascinated by the phenomenon.
I loved this book. It is filled with insights and details from
Madonna's life that the other books missed or simply left out because they only
want to praise the Material Girl. The information from Madonna's family is worth the price of the book alone. Victor also draws amazing parallels between
Madonna's life and Evita's, but she adds many more helpful
comparisons and critiques that make this book the one to read. It's the best of both worlds--dishy and smart.

This is quite possibly the worst book I've ever read!
Barbara Victor seems to hate Madonna, she constantly insults her in this book. Also, the pictures are weak. There are no pictures of her as a child or anything. And Ms. Victor devotes WAYYYYYYYY too much time to analyzing the religious aspects of Madonna's life.
DO NOT BUY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Having been a fan of Madonna for almost twenty years, I thought I knew everything there was to know about her. Well, I was wrong! Barbara Victor has revealed new material on the Material Girl herself! Delving deep into the pysche of the most famous woman in the world, Barbara Victor showcases Madonna's inner-drive and determination to succeed in the international pop arena. I would suggest this book to any true Madonna fans, along with Matthew Rettenmund's "Encyclopedia Madonnica" and Michael D. Craig's "Who's That Girl? The Ultimate Madonna Trivia Book", to find out everything there is to know about Madonna!

I should of given this book 1 star...but there was
some information that I did not know before.
I felt that the book jumped alot, from her role in
Evita to her childhood etc. Very, very choppy writing.
I would say she got most of her info from magazines
that I have read, I could of written the book myself
Please do not waste your money on this book.

This book was indeed quite a challenge to finish and would have been greatly improved by a more rigorous editing job. The writer's transitions between ideas were practically non-existent -- a frequent tactic of the author's was to describe an anecdote and then "analyze" it, but the analysis often left me totally baffled, since the writer did not take the time to explain why she came to her conclusions -- as if describing the anecdote was enough to make its (apparently one-and-only) "meaning" obvious. And I deeply distrust any biography that describes what the subject was thinking when she was alone, especially when the subject did not cooperate with or directly contribute to the writing of the book. And Ms. Victor got several of her facts wrong, which does not lend credence to her speculations -- "You Must Love Me," for example, was written for Madonna in Evita, and so it sounds silly for the writer to say Madonna made it her own, since she was the only one who has performed it so far. The writer also defines "los descamisados" as "the shiftless ones," when it actually means "the shirtless ones," although that could have been a typo -- again, something that careful editing would have caught. Evita, in fact, is referred to on almost every page and the writer's comparisons of Madonna to Eva Peron run the gamut from tedious to unintentionally hilarious.

I also bought Andrew Morton's book, and it will be interesting to read the two biographies back-to-back.

nowhere good as Lucy Stone's Like An Icon,Madonna: Like an Icon this is stil fun for the averavge Madonna fan.