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The prologue and first chapter of this book are so good that I was legitimately thrown. It turns out they're the best chapters in the book, but if you're going to be really good somewhere that's the best place to do it. And those chapters set enough of a tone for the rest of the book that it's easier to settle in.

I wasn't really planning to read this particular celebrity memoir. I read a bunch last year and felt a little played out. But I kept hearing it was good and worth checking out, and I wanted a fluffy quick audiobook so here we are.

I am pretty close in age to Jessica Simpson so I remember almost everything Simpson recounts here in pretty good detail. I remember the age of the teen girl pop star, when it was always Britney vs. Christina vs. Jessica vs. Mandy. I watched at least two seasons of Newlyweds (it's very possible I watched the third, but I also remember feeling uncomfortable with how obvious it was they weren't getting along). I have seen the meteoric rise of Simpson's clothing line. You can't have been through all of that pop culture without having some idea of who Simpson is. It is really saying something that after reading the book, I want to take back every bad thing I ever said about her. And I think there were more than a few bad things, especially in the early days. Like a lot of people, I thought she was kind of a dumb blonde. I couldn't tell if she was playing it up for the cameras or not, but I didn't really care much either way. It was a youthful and cruel way of looking at it. After spending so much time with Simpson you can tell that this is who she really is, she definitely has her ditzy moments, but her earnestness and excitement aren't fake.

What makes the book worth reading (besides cementing your loathing of John Mayer) is that this is clearly clearly clearly a book by someone who has been through a lot of therapy. Memoir requires the ability to see yourself clearly, without that kind of perspective you're not reliable for how you write about other people. Simpson is quite willing to announce her own flaws and mistakes.

For some people, none of this will be enough to overcome other parts of the book. 1) Simpson is very churchy, especially in the early chapters. (If you're under 35 you may not remember but she was very very famous for staying a virgin until marriage even though she was already a famous pop star by then.) I didn't mind this so much since it feels so integrated into who she is, and it decreases in later chapters. 2) She shares a story of being molested as a child, details are kept vague and it's mostly off-page, but if that's something that's a particularly tough topic for you, it does come up a good amount as she addresses her shame at the time and the anxiety it left behind for years afterwards. 3) And, perhaps most importantly, there is a LOT of talk about body image and weight. While she is definitely of the you-are-perfect-at-every-size inspirational mantra type, there are a lot of times in her life where she doesn't see herself that way, there are a lot of times she is told by industry people to lose weight, and her weight is a constant topic of discussion and speculation in the culture at large. And while she has a certain amount of body positivity, she doesn't always talk about it in the healthiest way even when she tries to. If this is a sensitive topic for you, you may want to give it a pass just because it makes up so much of her life, even if most of that isn't her fault.