Customer Reviews

A Mother's Gift

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(12)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

Although Britney has proved she can sing and get boys' hearts pumping, she still has to prove she can write one sentence worth reading. Even with her mother's help, Britney can not write a book worth reading, much less buying. The storyline took no imagination to create. The story of a small town girl thrown into a world of high society is old and classic. It could have been a good storyline but the way it was written made it quite boring and repetitive. Britney and her mother are horrible writers. Their sentences flop and their characters are underdeveloped. The character Holly is a delightful character ,but she is missing normal qualities of a human being. Holly is the picture perfect girl. There seems to be nothing wrong with her appearance or manners. The same goes for her boyfriend, Tyler. Flaws would have made these characters more real. The character ,Ditz, is a waste of words and paper. Ditz is very unreal and lacking several character developments such as growing up or fighting with her innatentive mother. The only character I could stomach was Holly's mother, Wanda. I am guessing that Lynne Spears wrote this character as Wanda seems like a real mother. Most of time, the sentences in the book were petite and lacking appeal. The plot was unreal. Especially the part where Holly is the youngest person to get a scholarship to the fancy school. How often does that happen? Almost never. The only part I like is the book is the twist near the end that concerns Wanda. That really is the only part that took some imagination to write. The whole book would be a complete drop if it wasn't for that part. Even the ending is quick and not well-written. In conclusion, this book was a waste of my money and time. I only hope that people can read this and be warned not to buy it. Unless you want to die of boredom, DO NOT READ THIS BOOK!!! Thank you very much!

This kind of book makes writers like me want to throw our pens away. Britney Spears and her mother are writing a book, see the cheese drip off the table. Why should we work feverishly on developing characters, twisting plots, creating twists, when she is taking the book deals? The publication companies have hit a new low, apparently they consider dancing in tight pants while lip synching equals writing talent. What's next, Justin Timberlake? Oh yes, he DOES have a book deal! Please do not buy this book, don't give Britt another million dollars to throw on the pile. They can't write songs, what makes you think they could write a novel?

I bought 'A Mother's Gift' because the summery at the back appied to me, not because of Britney Spears' name on the front, shared with her mother. I read the book in one night and put it down feeling somewhat unsatisfied. The ending was indeed a bit of a surprise but didn't really add much to the book. The whole story line is already so cotton candy sweet, dripping with pure sugar that it's enough to make you ill. The ending only added to the sweetness and it just made me groan.

This book, although well written, has no original plot. Holly and her mother Wanda (the one with the ugly birthmark on her face) are poor, Holly wins a scholarship, feels ashamed of her mother, mother reveals secret, daughter forgives mother, both live happily ever after. Sound familar? Not only is the book screaming "And the moral of this story is" at you with every turn of the page, but Holly is so perfect that no teenager could really relate to this perfect fourteen-year-old with her boyfriend back home (whom she has only gone as far as to kiss), and who help her rich friend get her life back on track. See what I mean about the whole sugar-sweetness story line?

Whenever a 'celebrity' releases a book, there is always some suspicion that it's the work of a ghost writer - particularly when the alleged author is as much of an intellectual vacuum as miss Spears. It's often quite easy to see how the celeb's basic idea has been spun into a more successful novel by a much more talented writer. I am one hundered percent certain, then, that there was no ghosting involved in the creation of this book.

That's not to say it's particularly offensive; it's moderately well written (the elder Spears' influence, no doubt) and all that. It's just... so... unexceptional. The basic plot is every 'poor underdog' story you've ever heard, but without any kind of twist or energy to keep the readers' interest. The characters are functional. The pacing is okay. There are no spelling mistakes. Sure, thousands of teenyboppin' idiots will be cluttering up these review sections with comments like "WOH BRITNEY SPEARS IS FANTASTIC!!!!! SHE DID IT AGANI!!!!11" but it's just another passing fad, and it'll soon be relegated to the never-to-be-touched-again bookshelves.

The only thing that got me even vaguely passionate about this was the revolting sugary cloying faux-sentiment that oozed from the pages like pus. Everything's just so lovely in "A Mother's Gift", you see. The heroine is just so lovely and kind, and her mother just loves her so much and the ending's so happy... it makes me want to grab Britney and 'mom' by their hair and drag them out of their valium-tinted vacuous world. I'll be greatly surprised if any girls (or their mothers) can really relate to this little cotton-wool covered schmaltz.

What REALLY disturbs me, however, isn't the book itself but what it represents - the cynical money-grubbing, pre-packaged, market-tested world of pop music slowly sliding its well-manicured fingers into the world of children's literature.

Britney- Your time is up. Please return to the mall that spawned you.

Lynn- Congratulations, your daughter is pretty and has a great body. Now cash that cheque and leave us all alone.

Parents- Treat your children: ignore this bland tosh and buy some Roald Dahl, James Howe, Janet and Allan Ahlberg, J.K. Rowling, Phillipa Pearce, Roger McGough, Mary Norton, Jacqueline Wilson and Terry Jones. You'll both be glad you did.

She has seemingly done everything else so why not write a novel? Well I'll tell you why not, because this story was badly written. The plot (granted, though quite different) has too many similarities to her actual life for my taste. It doesn't seem like it took an awful lot to write this. I hope, if there is another novel writen, that Britney can take time out of her busy schedule to write a real book.

... what really bothered me about "A Mother's Gift" was, that it bordered (in my mind) on vulgar propaganda. It seems, that it was designed to rehash the cliched "rags to riches" story (the real Britney by the way only has the latter part of this story in common with her literary counterpart) in order to offer young girls and boys a vision, an image, a possibility (however remote) of achieving stardom. While this visage itself may be helpful for young people, it had an exaggerated, self-caricaturing effect. Most importantly, however, it was designed to create an imaginary solidarity between Britney and her fans. By implicitly suggesting, that anyone can become a star, it lowers the star's pedestal and puts her (in the minds of her fans) into the category of "beloved" (however fabricated and untrue this may be), rather than "admirable". If "A Mother's Gift" had been a pamphlet instead of a novel, at least I could have respected the authors for not calling their creation "art" ...

I honestly can say that I intended to buy this book for my mother this coming mother's day. I don't really care who the 'author' was, I just wanted a nice book to put in a basket with some other gifts. I bought it and read it first. Please. I am a sincere person, and I simply cannot believe that the publisher thinks this book is good quality. Without the name Britney Spears it would be sitting on the discount rack, if it was ever published at all. A silly story with no heart or guts. Painfully written, I hope that Brit and her mother either get out of the writing business or take a few high school writing courses.

Please, do not waste your money.

FUFF! When I started reading this book the cover was missing so I didn't even notice who the author was, so its not like I got to prejudge the book before I even read it. Anyways bottom line this is not something I would reccomend, i mean after I had finshed reading this book i couldn't figure out one thing that had happened. Man, this book is so scatterd they have things that should have happened in the end that are in the beginning, events that happened earlier in the book are changed around. To tell you the truth I don't even know why I bothered reading it, just the story line- A little girl who has big dreams of doing something big (or in this case going to a music school) Britney do you know how many books have been written so similar to this?? Come on be a little creative!! The only thing A Mothers Gift's got going for it is the name at the top other wise do you honestly think this would have gotten published?? There is one highlight to it though, if you want too check out Britney's writing skills(hehe) go ahead and buy it. Thats why I gave it 2 stars its more humorous than to be taken seriously.

...P>Here is the latest from Britney Spears, who apparently is an angel of a daughter and calls her mother every night. The girl next door whom we have all watched grow into a vixen has added a new title to her stardom: author. This new book, A Mother's Gift, was written by Britney and her mother, Lynn. Generally, when stars publish books they hire a ghost writer, so that was my initial impression. However, I assume someone with that much money could hire a better ghost writer, so if I were the judge I'd say the brown-haired (she's not naturally blond) babe did in fact write it with her mom.

Anyway, the story line. In a small town in Mississippi, everyone knows everyone else. And everyone knows Holly dreams of becoming a singer and has the voice to do it. Holly and her mom are poor but very close to each other and can talk about anything, except Dad. Holly's friends are her mom's friends too and the relation ship between the girls is somewhat Steel Magnolias-esque. A few miles down the road, there is a prestigious school for musically-talented teens which Holly dreams of attending. After her perfectly gorgeous, sweet, caring, and never overpowering boyfriend (whom her mother adores), sends a demo tape of Haley to the school, Holly is scored an auditions and soon accepted with a full scholarship. She then excels at her new school.

In a seemingly last minute attempt to add depth to the fairy tale, Holly's mom holds a deep, dark, secret about Holly's past which "threatens to tear their relationship apart." However, as I hope most (hint hint) adopted girls would agree, the secret is not so bad.

Even though A Mother's Gift targets ten-year-olds, the writing is overly simple ("totally" is a regularly appearing adjective). I wouldn't buy it for my little sister's birthday, if I had a little sister. ...

A part of me has died after reading this book. How anyone would let a pen into these two people's hands totally blows my mind.