When her mother, Sarah Palin, became the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008, Bristol Palin was instantly propelled into the national spotlight, becoming the focus of intense public and national media scrutiny at the age of seventeen. In Not Afraid of Life, she shares with readers for the first time ever personal moments from her life—from her Alaskan roots to her pregnancy and single motherhood to her star turn on TV’s enormously popular Dancing with the Stars. This candid memoir is a heartfelt true story of a woman who is centered by her strong Christian faith and is Not Afraid of Life.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
Not Afraid of Life: My Journey So Far
and over one million other books are available for Amazon Kindle. Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Browse our Bookshelf Favorites store for big savings on popular fiction, nonfiction, children's books, and more. |
Book Description
Frequently Bought Together
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
Product Description
The oldest daughter of Sarah Palin and single mother goes beyond the headlines, offering readers an inside look at her life, her world, and the things that matter most, including her family and the faith that keeps her centered. When her mother became the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008, Bristol Palin was instantly propelled into the national spotlight, becoming the focus of intense public and national media scrutiny at the age of seventeen.
The oldest daughter of Sarah Palin and single mother goes beyond the headlines, offering readers an inside look at her life, her world, and the things that matter most, including her family and the faith that keeps her centered. When her mother became the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate in 2008, Bristol Palin was instantly propelled into the national spotlight, becoming the focus of intense public and national media scrutiny at the age of seventeen.
In Not Afraid of Life, Bristol gives readers an intimate behind-the-scenes look at her life for the first time, from growing up in Alaska to coming of age amid the media and political frenzy surrounding her mother’s political rise; from becoming a single mother while still a teenager to coping as her relationship with her baby’s father crumbled publicly—not once, but twice. Bristol talks about the highs and lows of her appearance on ABC-TV’s Dancing with the Stars, including the aching hours of practice, the biting criticisms, and the thrill of getting to the show’s finals. She speaks candidly of her aspirations for the future and the deep religious faith that gives her strength and inspiration. Plainspoken and disarmingly down to earth, Bristol offers new insight and understanding of who she is and what she values most.
A Look Inside Not Afraid of Life
Click on the images below to open larger versions.
 |  |  |  |
| I fished in the Mat-Su Borough from a young age. Here I am on a fishing trip with my grandfather at Willow Creek. | After an interview near the Statue of Liberty I was the only student to accept a diploma while wearing baby puke on my dress. Piper is dressed up in my graduation gown while I hold Tripp and McKinley looks on. | One of the most challenging parts of competing on Dancing with the Stars was not being able to hang out with Tripp as much as I wanted to! His on-set visits energized me. | Our home overlooks Lake Lucille, which freezes completely solid during the winter. Tripp is learning how to ice-skate on this cold day. Maybe one day he’ll follow in my brother Track’s steps and become a great hockey player! |
Review
“She writes convincingly, and humbly, of how she was able to move beyond her feelings of shame and Hester Prynne-like social ostracism.” (Washington Post )
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images? |
More About the Authors
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
130 of 168 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I read this book thinking that my opinion of Bristol may change after hearing her side of the story. I was wrong. Like Bristol, I grew up in Alaska. There is no way the story this girl tells is true. She didn't know alcohol got you drunk? Please. This book is dripping with fabricated stories to justify her mistakes. How about admitting you made decisions you regret instead of blaming everyone else? There isn't a "journey so far" if you haven't learned anything or taken responsibility for your life.
187 of 243 people found the following review helpful
Format:Kindle Edition
Bristol has always seemed to me to be a spunky, earnest young woman, so I was expecting this book to be an interesting read with some self-reflection and life lessons that would be helpful to American teens. I can't express in words how disappointed I was after reading it. As many others have commented, Bristol refuses to take responsibility for ANY of the bad decisions she made and seems clueless about how basically calling Levi a date rapist will effect his relationship with his son in the future. Yes, Levi seems like a jerk, but he is still her son's father and like attracts like so why was she with him so long? Her version of the story is not only completely self-serving, but it doesn't ring true. Bristol's credibility is further damaged by how she paints herself as the innocent victim in every situation. Everyone's out to get her and her family. It was extremely tiresome by the end of the book. This was a book filled with whining, complaining, and grievances galore. Bristol assumes the absolute worst about everyone she encounters, yet wants the reader to assume the best about her. I could understand it if having her child had truly destroyed a promising future she had in the works, but in reality she's been rewarded with riches and opportunities other 20 year olds could only dream of. I can't help but worry about Sarah Palin's other kids and what lesson they are learning about the consequences that come from bad decisions. Why wouldn't they also take the easy road to fame and fortune just like their big sister? Shame on Bristol, her ghostwriter and her mom, if she had anything to do with the content of this book. And shame on America for bestowing unearned celebrity on a young lady who clearly is not appreciative or mature enough to handle it. I would have never even considered buying Levi's upcoming book but now I might depending on its reviews. After this drivel, I'm curious to hear his side.
One last thing, how could Sarah Palin call this book perfect??? That was one of the reasons I decided to give it a read. Shameful!
One last thing, how could Sarah Palin call this book perfect??? That was one of the reasons I decided to give it a read. Shameful!
228 of 301 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Corinne Quayle, Tricia Nixon, Sarah Gore, the Agnew girls (Pamela, Susan, and Kimberly), Jennifer and Judith Kemp... all of them, any of them, and other Vice Presidential candidates' daughters must be limp with relief that Mummy didn't find a ghostwriter and publisher to put out a book this sleazy, and so early in a young woman's life.
Bristol Palin professes many things in her life: that her parents gave her a "purity ring" in adolescence (a sure-fire applause line for one of her mother's speeches, had she used it, which she hasn't), that she has had only one sex partner at the age of twenty ("one too many," as Nancy French writes). After being put on birth-control pill at age fifteen, she says, to relieve menstrual cramps, Bristol woke up "cold in a tent" after passing out from too many wine coolers and losing her virginity; and that the young man to whom she announced her betrothal not once but twice is "a gnat." Oh, and that she felt she had to "watch her back" in the presence of Meghan McCain. Bristol's many, many grievances--such as why her family did not routinely fly first-class when her mother was, briefly, governor of Alaska, or why the McCains owned so much Louis Vuitton luggage and had more hairdressers at hand during the 2008 campaign--take up most of this book. And from the foreword by Theodore Roosevelt, the person who actually reads this book has to wonder how much of it Bristol herself read. It also appears to be a catch-all for grievances accumulated by her mother since the publication of Sarah Palin's ghost-written "Going Rogue."
"'Wow!' said my mom," pointing out that the "Dancing With the Stars" finals garnered more viewers than Keith Olbermann, whom Bristol says, "has seemed to disappear, and is more irrelevant than ever." Umm, Keith Olbermann returned to the airwaves this week--poor timing, girl.
The knife-sticking and twisting goes beyond Olbermann, President Obama and the McCain and Johnston families, including Bristol's fellow contestants on DWTS, a competition entered by no other politician's daughter. Bristol/Nancy call the human-interest pieces on Kyle Massey, Jennifer Grey, and Florence Henderson "sleekly produced tearjerkers," a phrase difficult to imagine emanating from Bristol's lips, given her trash-talking posts on MySpace and Facebook. Yet she tells her professional dance partner Mark Ballas that their chances are "all in God's hands." Really? After the instructions given on the Internet to Palin fans about how to game the system and multiple-vote for her?
The real victim of this otherwise forgettable book is little Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston. Children are cruel, as his own mother has demonstrated in 253 pages. Tripp will be the target of playground gibes before he can read.
The real culprit for foisting this tawdry family on the American scene is John McCain. Without him, we never would have heard of Bristol Palin.
Bristol Palin professes many things in her life: that her parents gave her a "purity ring" in adolescence (a sure-fire applause line for one of her mother's speeches, had she used it, which she hasn't), that she has had only one sex partner at the age of twenty ("one too many," as Nancy French writes). After being put on birth-control pill at age fifteen, she says, to relieve menstrual cramps, Bristol woke up "cold in a tent" after passing out from too many wine coolers and losing her virginity; and that the young man to whom she announced her betrothal not once but twice is "a gnat." Oh, and that she felt she had to "watch her back" in the presence of Meghan McCain. Bristol's many, many grievances--such as why her family did not routinely fly first-class when her mother was, briefly, governor of Alaska, or why the McCains owned so much Louis Vuitton luggage and had more hairdressers at hand during the 2008 campaign--take up most of this book. And from the foreword by Theodore Roosevelt, the person who actually reads this book has to wonder how much of it Bristol herself read. It also appears to be a catch-all for grievances accumulated by her mother since the publication of Sarah Palin's ghost-written "Going Rogue."
"'Wow!' said my mom," pointing out that the "Dancing With the Stars" finals garnered more viewers than Keith Olbermann, whom Bristol says, "has seemed to disappear, and is more irrelevant than ever." Umm, Keith Olbermann returned to the airwaves this week--poor timing, girl.
The knife-sticking and twisting goes beyond Olbermann, President Obama and the McCain and Johnston families, including Bristol's fellow contestants on DWTS, a competition entered by no other politician's daughter. Bristol/Nancy call the human-interest pieces on Kyle Massey, Jennifer Grey, and Florence Henderson "sleekly produced tearjerkers," a phrase difficult to imagine emanating from Bristol's lips, given her trash-talking posts on MySpace and Facebook. Yet she tells her professional dance partner Mark Ballas that their chances are "all in God's hands." Really? After the instructions given on the Internet to Palin fans about how to game the system and multiple-vote for her?
The real victim of this otherwise forgettable book is little Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston. Children are cruel, as his own mother has demonstrated in 253 pages. Tripp will be the target of playground gibes before he can read.
The real culprit for foisting this tawdry family on the American scene is John McCain. Without him, we never would have heard of Bristol Palin.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I really respect Bristom Palin and loved her book.
If you start out not liking her then forget it - that's a stupid way to come to a book in my opinion. If you like her then you will like the book.
Published 8 days ago by Butterfly
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not afraid of life: my journey so far
I loved this book. I feel like Bristol gave an honest representation of her life and her son's life. It was well-written and a good read.
Published 21 days ago by Regina Meeks
5.0 out of 5 stars
The RIGHT side of Bristol
So glad I read this book. It is insightful and refreshing. It provides a perspective into the life Of Bristol and her family that the LSM doesn't want us to see. Read more
Published 1 month ago by WAD Jenkins
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review
I found it to be a real honest in-site to her life. Worth the read learned a lot. It was written very well.
Published 3 months ago by Amy
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great Book
Once I started reading this I could not put it down. Lots of items reminded me of when I lived in Alaska. I think it would be a great book for all young ladies to read.
Published 3 months ago by PMR
2.0 out of 5 stars
Not sure what the objective of this book was
First off, I'm not a Palin supporter. I don't hate Bristol, or the family since, of course, I don't know them. Read more
Published 3 months ago by ltm12386
5.0 out of 5 stars
FOREVER CHANGED
Bristol Is An inspiration and I am FOREVER CHANGED by this lovely book!!! BRISTOL IS MY ROLE MODEL(: bristol is quite blessing in my life
Published 3 months ago by Clare
5.0 out of 5 stars
An interesting read
If you don't like Bristol or the Palin family then don't read it. If you didn't read the book, don't write a review on it. Read more
Published 3 months ago by SouthernMomma
5.0 out of 5 stars
NOT
Good book book read at a nice pace to keep you interested to continue reading. Will recommend this book to others
Published 4 months ago by Jennifer Lindsay
4.0 out of 5 stars
Great book
I couldn't put this book down. Doesn't matter what age you are, going through motherhood for the first time is always in someway relatable.
Published 6 months ago by Brie A
