Becoming Beyoncé
The Untold Story
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4.0 • 10 Ratings
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- £4.99
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- £4.99
Publisher Description
Insightful and entertaining, Becoming Beyoncé: The Untold Story is the first authoritative biography of the most famous woman in the world today and a must-have for the 'Bey Hive'.
She's adored by her millions of fans, writes and performs songs that move and inspire, but Beyoncé is truly known by very few. Now highly acclaimed biographer J. Randy Taraborrelli reveals the woman behind the star. He takes us from a childhood spent performing in talent shows to finding worldwide success with her group, Destiny's Child, managed by her father Matthew. Beyoncé's first solo album, Dangerously in Love, went straight to number one and she has to date released a total of five albums which have sold 75 million copies.
Beyoncé prefers to keep her personal life with husband Jay Z and their children carefully under lock and key. She may be a top performer, fashion idol and business mogul in her own right, but fame has come at personal sacrifice and with private heartbreak. Based on exhaustive research, including exclusive interviews with those who have played pivotal roles in her life and career, the book reveals the hard-earned lessons 'Queen Bey' has learned about love, life, loyalty and family.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Superstardom is a homespun family enterprise with only minimal dysfunction in this tepid biography of pop singer and actress Beyonc Knowles. Taraborrelli (Michael Jackson) ascribes Beyonc 's success to her preternatural voice, musicality, and stage charisma, all obvious from age 11, as well as the single-minded efforts of her management team: first the amateur impresarios who recruited her for a tweens girl group, then her father, Mathew, who applied his salesman's chops and an inherent business cunning equal to any major-label exec's in order to build her career. Knowles herself seems rather square controlled, tight-lipped, relentlessly focused on success and image so the drama comes from shedding people who don't enhance her success, from a gauche boyfriend, Lyndall Locke, to the Destiny's Child group-mates who want more limelight. The book's magnetic center is Mathew, an ego-maniacal control freak and womanizer who's also a promotional genius, but sister Solange provides a jolt with her famous elevator assault on Beyonce's husband, Jay-Z. Taraborrelli did not interview Knowles and too-often substitutes generic gushing for insight: "She'd quietly gone about separating the parts of her life that felt true and organic from those that felt false and pretentious, and then moved forward committed to personal honesty and integrity." But he paints a revealing picture of the entertainment industry's debt to middle-class strivers. Photos.
Customer Reviews
Third person view
It’s clear that most of the people giving the information were giving a 3rd person understanding of Bey and her family. Failed to outline much of what Bey and her family were going through from their own point of view. Also obvious that most sources saw either Beyoncé or Matthew as the villain of their lives, the writer began to show this bias as well. Lacks concrete information sounds more rumour or drama based rather than her life experiences. It even shows that the author found it easier to get information pertaining to her Destiny’s Child era than her current solo era. Obviously because the sources he’d used are those who no longer have a position in her life. Still leaves Beyoncé as a huge mystery and I find that I’m not in awe or disgusted but feel sympathy for both her and her father.
Author is a great writer and would’ve been extremely successful and done a greater job if this was all coming from Beyoncé and her immediate family