Mariah Carey [Paperback]

Marc Shapiro (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

Mariah Carey: The Unauthorized Biography

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A Cinderella story starring the bestselling female musical artist of the millennium

Mariah Carey grew up in a broken home, poor and with no friends. Singing was her salvation. One day, at a music industry party, another musician slips executive Tommy Mottola a demo tape of Mariah. In the limo on his way home Mottola is bored, so he listens to the tape. Mariah's voice is like liquid gold. He goes back to look for her. But just like in the Cinderella story, she has slipped away.

Mottola follows the tracks of Carey's slipper and immediately signs her on. In 1990, at 21, she becomes an instant star. Her debut album sells more than seven million copies in the U.S. And she ends up marrying Mottola, her Prince Charming.

Marc Shapiro's new biography charts this Cinderella story in which Carey becomes the biggest selling recording artist of the 1990s, selling 115 million albums worldwide. Carey is the only musical artist to earn a #1 single every year of the last decade. At the beginning of this decade, fans are anticipating her new movie and soundtrack to All That Glitters (March 2001).

Shapiro's new book also includes coverage of Carey's personal life: her love of cats and dogs, riding horses and roller coasters, and watching Marilyn Monroe movies; her eventual break-up with Mottola, revealed to have physically abused Mariah and kept her prisoner in their mansion; and her recent bizarre behaviour at live shows like her fondness for the striptease.

From the Author

MARC SHAPIRO's previous books include the best-selling J.K. Rowling: The Wizard Behind Harry Potter, Carlos Santana: Back on Top, My Rules: The Lauryn Hill Story, and James Cameron: An Unofficial Biography of the Filmmaker

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Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: ECW Press (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1550224441
• ISBN-13: 978-1550224443
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 6.8 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,393,811 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Glossed Over, May 29, 2003

By 

J. M. Zuurbier (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mariah Carey (Paperback)

Marc Shapiro's book on Mariah Carey is pretty well written with a few exceptions. There are a few misses. I felt that while he did pay specific attention to her beginnings and various stages of her careers, he rather mulled over her relationships with Tommy Mottola, Derek Jeter and Luis Miguel. He's explaining her start in her career then boom all of a sudden its just that she was in love with Tommy Mottola, and he describes their wedding and shortly their marriage from there after, then suddenly their break up, which he barely even covers. I mean yes of course their relationship was short lived and these things did happen rather quickly, but it would have been nice for a little more detail. He explains how Mottola became controlling at the end of their marriage, then suddenly they are just seperated. A few more details would have been nice too for the time spent on Derek Jeter or Luis Miguel, glossed over and didn't really delve into anything.

His writing is good though, for the most part. The career notes are very well written, you really get a sense of what Mariah may be like (since this is just one author's version of what may or may not be the truth). He starts at the very beginning, background on Mariah's family, her childhood, what she did, her love for music. Moving along to when she moved to New York and how she found success.

Although I found some of his information was a bit off track, which isn't the best when you consider a biography should be an accurate depiction of the person it's being written about. For example, he talked about her MUSIC BOX album and how there were three singles, "Dreamlover", "Without You" and "Anytime You Need A Friend". Yes they were singles, but what about "Hero"? That was one of her biggest hits, and it's pretty alarming that an author would forget such a fact. He only mentioned that she wrote the song and it ended up on the album, not that it was a hit song that changed many fans lives. Same goes for "One Sweet Day", that song was her biggest hit and had a huge global impact, but it was really just an afterthought in the book. He talked about her BUTTERFLY album as controversial in the sense that she was spreading her wings and doing music with a bit more R&B and hip hop, which was true, but it wasn't such a drastic change from her other music, an evolution that started with DAYDREAM in 1995. Her real hip hop and R&B music was truly realized when RAINBOW was released in 1999, which was a very collaboration heavy project, whereas BUTTERFLY only had two vocal collaborations, the other collaborations being of the producer sort. He also mentions a song on BUTTERFLY he quoted as being called "Shook Ones", last time I checked there was no song titled that, but there was a cover of Prince's 1984 song "The Beautiful Ones". Someone should get their facts straight.

Nevertheless, it's decent enough I suppose. There are baring omissions but that's to be expected I suppose, until Mariah writes her own book. He did explain about media reaction to her music quite a bit, which was a nice touch. Overall it's an easy read, interesting, but there is definately room for improvement here.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book !, April 8, 2003

By 

Kuwaiti (Kuwait) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mariah Carey (Paperback)

If you don't know anything about how great Mariah's story is .. then this book is for you, and if you know everything about Mariah's story except the little details .. then this book is for you too :)
Buy it im sure you're gonna love it!

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Un-describable, August 11, 2001

By 

Neil (Claremont, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mariah Carey (Paperback)

I really Loved the book by Marc, it shows a side of Mariah we always wanted to know, and with her in the hospital right now, we understand all the work that she does for all of her fans and we trully admore her for all of her stuff, everything, this book shows and tell all of mariahs backstage pass things that she has to go through and things that she has went through as a child, this is a book to buy and to rmemeber! Mariah is the Goddess od the 21st century, and the 1990's Decade......