7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Too Vague, June 4, 2006
This review is from: A Single Step (Hardcover)
Given the current media interest in the breakup of her marriage to Paul McCartney, I picked this up to learn more about the woman the tabloids all call a golddigger.
As an autobiography, it's not the best I've ever read. So many incidents are vague in terms of time frame, and especially names of people involved that it gives credence to those accusations that Ms. Mills has embellished her life story. There are two separate stories of her being threatened by people (a lesbian roommate, a french magazine employee) in such a similar and bizarre way that I was left wondering what really happened. The latter incident is used to explain her sudden flight from France and back to her on-again off-again boyfriend Alfie Karmal. Apparently, a former prostitute to rich Arabs is claiming that Ms. Mills was enjoying the same lifestyle during this period when her book says she had a high-paying contract with a French cosmetics company. She never mentions the company's name. I found it a strange thing to leave out.
It's not my intention to point another finger at Ms. Mills and scream "liar". I'm judging the book solely on its merits and as it's an autobiography she's entitled to write whatever she likes. It's just not very effective.
I would have enjoyed learning more about her charity work between the time of her accident and meeting Paul McCartney. It seems like this is the period when she re-invented herself, and I mean that in a totally positive way. She could very easily have hit the bottle after her accident, but she found a purpose her prior years of life had been missing.
Overall, I give the book 2.5 stars. It's an easy read, but the omission of basic facts is distracting.
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14 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A True Survivor, December 8, 2002
This review is from: A Single Step (Hardcover)
Heather Mills McCartney has received a tremendous amount of criticism in the press, and this book has been nit-picked in reviews. There have been accusations of exaggeration of her near-Dickensian childhood, and subsequent rough road in life, among other things. And, after all was said and done, she nabbed herself a Beatle.
Well, I read this book, putting all that aside, and, although this may not be the best biography of the century, neither is it nearly as bad as critics have made it seem. Heather Mills had a life before Paul McCartney, and her childhood of abuse and neglect seems plausible to me. Her father physically and verbally abused her mother, who was quiet until the day she left her husband, and her three children, and moved to London with a stage actor. This left the pre-teen Heather to do the lion's share of the housework and cooking for her father, older brother, and younger sister. Also, with their mother gone, the father was free to carry out physical and emotional abuse on his children, which he did, frequently.
Heather Mills grew up in a hurry, both emotionally and physically, and her tales of her precocious puberty are ones I could relate to. At age 13, Heather's father, a bit of a vagabond and dreamer who was always in debt and always moving, ended up in prison for two years after embezzling money. Heather and her sister were sent to live with her mother and boyfriend in London, while her brother went to live with their paternal grandfather in Brighton. Heather could not get along with her step-father, and, at age 14, ran away to live and work at a carnival. After this, she was briefly homeless and slept under the arches at Waterloo Station. Life forced her to grow up in a hurry, and gave her a drive and ambition that is perhaps not admired in a woman as much as it would be in a man.
Eventually, Heather moves back to her old hometown and moves in with her working-class boyfriend, at age 16. Then, driven to succeed, she leaves him, moves back to London, and enters a series of modeling competitions. From here she models, moves to Paris, opens and sells several small businesses, and enters into an ill-advised marriage at 21. She leaves this husband for a Yugoslavian ski instructor, and finds herself immersed in the first days of the civil war when Serbs crash through Slovenia to reach Croatia.
All of these things take place before her tragic accident in 1993, where she is crossing the street and is hit by a police motorcyle, and loses her left leg after it is amputated below the knee. This event is well documented elsewhere, but she writes of her pain and struggle for recovery, and how it leads her to become a leading advocate in Europe for amputees. Her earlier experiences in Yugoslavia lead to her involvement in the banning of land mines, and the shipment of thousands of artificial limbs to victims all over the world.
And, after all this, the young but mature woman with this dramatic past meets and falls in love with the widowed Paul McCartney. This may seem like the stuff of fiction, but it is all true. Paul McCartney's first wife, Linda, suffered the same slings and arrows as Heather has, also being accused of exaggerating her past, and of being manipulative and unworthy of the lofty position of Mrs. McCartney. It takes a lot of guts to suffer through such press scrutiny, and Heather describes how the press became very resentful of her, once she started to be tight-lipped about her relationship with Paul.
Heather Mills doesn't meet Paul McCartney until the last quarter of the book, and although she describes their meeting and courtship, painting Paul as wonderful and romantic, there is no salacious gossip. She doesn't speak of any conflicts with Paul's children, nor any other negative aspects. She does talk briefly of meeting and admiring George Harrison, and how Paul handled his death. However, this is Heather's story, how she lived and learned and became stronger because of it. I do not know if she exaggerated, or how much was left out. I know that I enjoyed reading this book, as the story of someone who managed to make it through very trying circumstances, and go on to lead an amazing life.
Also, the author's proceeds go directly to Adopt-A-Minefield, so this book is not being used as a way to "cash in" which has been another criticism.
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