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Oprah A Biography (2000)

by Kitty Kelley(Favorite Author)

3.04 of 5 Votes: 3

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English

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review 1: When I started listening to this book I was immediately made uncomfortable by the "unauthorized" nature of the biography. However, I was willing to give the book a shot since most biographies written are actually "unauthorized." (It's hard to ask a dead person for permission. Living biography subjects are a different story.) That being said, the unauthorized nature of the biography significantly limits the type and character of the interviews available. The included interviews weigh heavily on the anti-Oprah side. When the book actually starts Kelly makes an odd choice for the start, the sex-abuse episode in which Oprah revealed her own abuse. The amount of detail plus the lack of background for the biography subject makes this a lurching, off-kilter start to the book. Kel... morely regains her footing when she goes back and starts at the beginning and creates a roughly chronological narrative. Note the word "roughly." If Kelly had bothered to stick to this sort of a narrative, I might have given the book 3 stars instead of 2. Instead, Kelly frequently gets off on tangents which cause her to backtrack and add confusion to the incredibly scattered narrative. Another sign of her chronology trouble is evidenced in one description that stuck out to me. While discussing an event that took place in the mid-1990s, Kelly describes the shrimp as the size of "iPods" which is a problem since iPods didn't come into existence until over a decade. I don't recommend this book at all.
review 2: Hmmm. I was never a huge Oprah fan, but I've always admired her humanitarian work and her individual success in her career. So I thought I'd try this book. The author says she is including the good and the bad so as not to participate in "revisionist history," and she definitely paints both sides. But even being someone who didn't watch her show, read her book club books, become a disciple of Dr Phil or Dr Oz, or read The Secret, I did think this book was biased against her more than being balanced. Maybe it was just because the author revealed so many things that Oprah has worked so hard to keep secret. She comes off looking horribly hypocritical, deceptive, controlling, gluttonous, power-hungry, stuck up, elitist, and having delusions of grandeur. But she does a lot of great things too, and I bet her friends enjoy her company. I think all of us have good and bad things about us, and Oprah isn't an exception, despite the image she presented on her show. It's normal to want to keep your dark secrets private. But I personally don't like it when anyone puts forward an image of someone who is warm, loving, and moral when they are really someone very different, celebrity or not. So good job, Kitty! People don't need to go down in history as saints if they're not in reality. less

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