false 3426208 1416587624 9781416587620 493 222 http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3426208.Life_with_My_Sister_Madonna 1441363 Christopher Ciccone 504 225 1 6 false Wed Jul 16 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 13:22:57 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 17 17:12:06 -0700 2008
I'll qualify this review by telling you that I chose this book at the airport because I wanted something simple and fun to read on my 14 hour flight to Tokyo. So, it's probably my own fault for ending up with such a worthless book.

My two main criticisms of the book are as follows:

1. The quality of the writing in this book was completely sub-par and even what I would call lazy at times. Christopher might not be a writer by trade, but he was assisted in this effort by Wendy Leigh. I've never read anything else by Leigh, but she she wrote quite a few other books before this one. This book was littered with typos, lousy sentence structure, and entire paragraphs that barely made sense. Was there not an editor or an intern available to help with proofreading? Did Leigh just record Christopher's ramblings and then transcribe them word for word? I just don't know.

I can only assume that the publishers knew that this book would sell just on the basis of having Madonna's name on the cover, and so really didn't bother to do much oversight on the effort. Whatever the reason, an amateur with a good grasp of Essay Writing 101 could have made reading this sloppy piece of literature quite a bit better in just a weekend, in my humble opinion.

2. With my basic grasp of pop-psychology, Christopher has shown himself to be suffering badly from Battered Wife Syndrome. He (perhaps unconsciously) decided long ago to play the role of victim in his relationship with his sister, and showed few signs by the end of the book of changing.

Madonna's brother detailed working for his sister as her dresser/interior designer/assistant, wherein she would always become emotionally/verbally abusive and withhold payment for his services. Then, when he would threaten to quit or stop talking to her for a while, she would throw him a few crumbs of perfunctory kindness. Inevitably, he would go back to working for her, and the cycle would repeat itself over and over again. For more than 350 pages and 20 years!

Christopher describes Madonna to be a super diva bitch. That may be true, or it may be exaggerated for the public. Only the two of them can know what the true dynamics of their relationship are. But if even half of what Christopher says is real, this book made him look like a pathetic hanger-on, rather than someone I could feel sorry for. About halfway through the book, I wanted to scream, “if she's so awful and not paying you, FIND ANOTHER FUCKING JOB, ASSHOLE!”

One of the more annoying aspects of this book is that he makes it clear that he and his sister never talk to each other about their feelings, or even resolve any arguments that they have; he says that is not how their family does things. He has no idea why Madonna treats him the way she does, so he persists in taking us through pages and pages of "Why Does My Sister Treat Me So Badly?!?"

He's obviously quite emotionally immature, and it reminds me of when I was a teenager and my girlfriends and I would sit around and try to figure out why the boys we liked were such idiots--a useless, perpetual, impossible waste of time.

You know what, Christopher? If the things you have told us are true, maybe your sister is just a selfish egomaniac, and should worry a bit more about your own masochistic need to be close to her rather than trying to figure out what makes her tick.

That's another thing! The guy goes on and on throughout the book about how he and his sister were so “close” in the early part of her career, and he wants to be “close” to her again. In my estimation—from what he's described—the two siblings were never tight. He was PHYSICALLY around her a great deal, going on tour with her, designing her houses, etc. But, he never gives any evidence that the two of them ever shared any type of intimate emotional bond.

As a result, there's really nothing new to learn about Madonna from this book because Christopher doesn't know squat about his sister's thoughts or feelings about anything, much less about her relationship with him. And he doesn't really give any interesting details about her private life, so all he has accomplished is having a very monotonous catharsis about his sister in public.

And what a f*&king NAME-DROPPER!! There are so many side stories littered throughout this book where he details his relationships (or just one-time run-ins) with other famous people for no reason at all. The vignettes have absolutely nothing to do with the story, and really became obnoxious.

One last criticism that I have about this book. Christopher is gay, and talks about several long-term relationships he's had with other men. He gives the names of everyone else that he's been friends with over the last 25 years, but he changes the names of most of the men that he's been with. Since he makes clear that his boyfriends were openly gay, it doesn't make sense why he keeps their identities confidential, and he doesn't give any clue to why he needs to.

I could say more, but I don't want to spoil the whole book for anyone who might still want to read this piece of crap.
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