I wrote about Nikki Racklin's Madonna and Me back in November and I finally got a chance to read it ... and I loved it just as much as I thought I would.
I expected Nikki to be American, but only a couple of pages in I realised she's actually English and, funnily enough, it sort of changed my whole perception of the book.
I was anticipating a kind of "growth" memoir - how I grew up and realised that Madonna is Madonna and I'm me kind of a thing, but instead Madonna and Me is more of a snarky where did it all go wrong? what was I thinking? book.
Nikki began her music career at the same time as Madonna, but where Madonna's career quickly went stratospheric, Nikki's stalled ... for about twenty years. She wasn't unsuccessful - she toured, she made a record, she had a lot of fun - but she never got a record deal and she certainly didn't come close to Madonna's level of fame. Throughout the book, Nikki compares her career with Madonna's and always comes out second best, often with very funny results.
What I loved about this book was that Nikki is under no illusions as to why Madonna made it while she didn't - star quality, charisma, the X factor. Plus she (Nikki, I'm not sure about Madonna) can laugh at herself (since she performed on French TV wearing a man's vest and boxer shorts that she'd decorated herself, that's a good job) and she's very down to earth about her career.
In fact, she's a little bit too self-deprecating at times - she can't have been as poor as she says since she was sought out by more successful musicians and worked as a session singer (which I used to think I wanted to be - despite not being able to sing - and I can remember reading about how hard it is and how good you have to be).
Madonna and Me is much more about Nikki Racklin than it is about Madonna, but that's okay - there are thousands of books about Madonna already and I doubt very many of them are as entertaining as this one.
Rating: 4/5
Like this? Try But Enough About Me by Jancee Dunn
