Title: Brunette Ambition
Author: Lea Michele
Publication Date: 20th May 2014
Publisher: Harmony Books (Hardcover)/Crown Archetype (Ebook)
Pages: 208 pages (Hardcover)/224 pages (Ebook)
Source: Purchased (Ebook)
Pages: 208 pages (Hardcover)/224 pages (Ebook)
Source: Purchased (Ebook)
Audience/Genre: Memoir
Rating: 3.5 ☆ Out of 5 ☆
Summary from Goodreads:
The star of the hit show Glee shares her experiences and insider tips on beauty, fashion, inner strength, and more in an illustrated book that’s part memoir, part how-to, and part style guide.Lea Michele is one of the hardest working performers in show business. Whether she’s starring as Rachel Berry on Glee, rocking a glamorous look on the red carpet, recording her solo album, or acting as the spokesperson for L’Oreal, Lea is the ultimate multi-tasker. She knows better than anyone that it is difficult to be your best self and keep things in perspective when your to-do list is overflowing and you are faced with challenges, so she’s developed a foolproof system for remaining healthy and centered. In Brunette Ambition, she reveals the lessons and advice that have worked for her--from beauty and fashion secrets to fitness tips, and career insights. Supplemented with never-before-seen photos and revealing anecdotes, it’s the book Lea wishes she’d had in her teens and early twenties: A practical and inspirational guide to harnessing tenacity and passion and living the fullest life, no matter what obstacles life puts in your way.
Review:
I'm a huge glee fan and as a result have grown to love Lea too over the years. I'm always in awe of how confident and beautiful and intelligent Lea is. She is one of my biggest role models. The one thing (if had to choose one) I love most about her is how strong a woman she is.
When I found out that Lea was writing a book, it immediately went into my want to read list! I finally bought it and read it. On the whole it was a pretty good read, however I did feel that there were things I wanted to read about that were not in the book. A longer explanation is as follows.
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Things I liked about the book.
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The Recipes: Her food recipes were also very enjoyable to read and learn about! Lea always has great skin and a really great figure. She always talks about how the food she eats helps her to keep being healthy. It was really great knowing about her favorite foods. Her ways of keeping healthy. There were many moments when she talked about the basic foods in her life and all that! The recipes were a plus of course. I learned a lot from the recipes and I'm sure that it's going to be really tasty! I'm definitely going to try making one of those recipes soon!
Besides tips on how to do your hair, there were tips on the kinds looks you could wear to different occasions. Be it a formal or informal occasion, there were many different make up looks for them.
Besides
tips on how to do your hair, there were tips on the kinds looks you
could wear to different occasions. Be it a formal or informal occasion,
there were many different make up looks for them.
Lea is after all a huge fashionista so this is not a big surprise. I really liked what she said about fashion and also of her talking about her favorite brands, her shopping style, the types of clothes she likes and the different looks she has worn before.
The Personal Moments: Honestly, my favorite part of the book was this part. I was waiting for the parts about Lea because after all it is supposed to be a memoir about Lea.
Broadway was afterall a huge part of Lea's life. It's not surprising that there was so much about her Broadway career. I loved reading about what she learned from her different shows the most!
What I can say about Glee. Glee did make her the most famous after all. And she is the star of Glee. As a die hard Gleek, I was really happy that Glee had been included in the book!
Lea is really inspiring! I love how even though this book is about her, she included stuff about her friends and what she does with them and how she cherishes them <3
The Layout: I think the layout was pretty clean cut and neat. The color scheme was really pretty and fitting for Lea. It matched the personality that I knew of her very well. It was bright and colorful but at the same time professional for a book. It was also really easy to flip back and forth - for an ebook at least - because there were links to different parts of the book. :)
The Photographs: I absolutely adore books with photographs! The photographs were probably my favorite parts of the books. A picture tells a thousand words afterall right? :) I love how it shows little bits of her life that we never knew about and so much more! She looks so beautiful in every photo!
The Recipes: Her food recipes were also very enjoyable to read and learn about! Lea always has great skin and a really great figure. She always talks about how the food she eats helps her to keep being healthy. It was really great knowing about her favorite foods. Her ways of keeping healthy. There were many moments when she talked about the basic foods in her life and all that! The recipes were a plus of course. I learned a lot from the recipes and I'm sure that it's going to be really tasty! I'm definitely going to try making one of those recipes soon!
The Health Tips: Besides the healthy food recipes, Lea added so much other health tips. From tips on the face, the body, the hair to tips on relaxing and keeping healthy. This book had all the self help tips needed.
Hair tips.
There were specific tips on how she did her hair and pictures to show how it would like as seen in the picture to the left.
Make Up Tips.
Exercise Tips.
Fashion Tips.
The Personal Moments: Honestly, my favorite part of the book was this part. I was waiting for the parts about Lea because after all it is supposed to be a memoir about Lea.
Growing Up.
I loved reading about Lea growing up and all the adorbs pictures of her! She was so adorable!
Broadway.
Glee.
Friendships.
Personal Life.
What a strong woman Lea Michele is.
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Things I did not like about the book.
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The biggest thing I didn't like about the book was that I wanted to learn more about Lea Michele, the person. However, it seemed like it was more Lea Michele, the self help guidance counselor. It felt like it was 40% tips, 20% recipes, 25% her, 15% everything else.
She also seemed to skim over things about herself and her feelings etc. For example, she only briefly mentioned GLEE and all she talked about were that they were her family. However, that was something that seemed pretty obvious already. Many people I knew wanted her to go behind the scenes about the experience but she only seemed to talk very generally about it so I was a little disappointed.
Another thing I didn't really like was the fact that the book seemed so broken up. The photos and layout were pretty good, however for example, at one point Lea talked about her life as an actress and her career and all that and then suddenly she dropped a recipe in the middle of it, later on instead of having moments of 'sudden' recipes there was a section specifically for the recipes. I thought that it was a little bit random as she seemed to switch between make up and food and life and advice and all that.
I'm a Gleek so I know a lot about Lea Michele's work already, so it would have nice to be able to know more about her and her personal life. I felt like she skimmed over or wrote too little on the personal parts.
Brunette Ambition was marketed as a memoir. It's even mentioned in the summary. However, if a person was planning to learn more about Lea's life, the book probably would not be of much help. There were parts about her family and career and just her but the large part of the book was essentially a self help book. You don't really learn much about HER but more about her daily routine and how she helps herself stay healthy and happy and all that.
Instead of being a memoir, this probably should be a self-help book. I have however read somewhere that she may be writing another book some other time, perhaps since she has already shown all her 'helping' ways in this book, then that book might be a real memoir where we learn more about her.
On the whole it has been pretty satisfying for me. I did enjoy it and felt that it would be a good coffee table kind of book. I believe it is a great book for health and beauty and will help me a lot when I need time for myself!
If you get your hands on it do buy it!
She also seemed to skim over things about herself and her feelings etc. For example, she only briefly mentioned GLEE and all she talked about were that they were her family. However, that was something that seemed pretty obvious already. Many people I knew wanted her to go behind the scenes about the experience but she only seemed to talk very generally about it so I was a little disappointed.
Another thing I didn't really like was the fact that the book seemed so broken up. The photos and layout were pretty good, however for example, at one point Lea talked about her life as an actress and her career and all that and then suddenly she dropped a recipe in the middle of it, later on instead of having moments of 'sudden' recipes there was a section specifically for the recipes. I thought that it was a little bit random as she seemed to switch between make up and food and life and advice and all that.
I'm a Gleek so I know a lot about Lea Michele's work already, so it would have nice to be able to know more about her and her personal life. I felt like she skimmed over or wrote too little on the personal parts.
Brunette Ambition was marketed as a memoir. It's even mentioned in the summary. However, if a person was planning to learn more about Lea's life, the book probably would not be of much help. There were parts about her family and career and just her but the large part of the book was essentially a self help book. You don't really learn much about HER but more about her daily routine and how she helps herself stay healthy and happy and all that.
Instead of being a memoir, this probably should be a self-help book. I have however read somewhere that she may be writing another book some other time, perhaps since she has already shown all her 'helping' ways in this book, then that book might be a real memoir where we learn more about her.
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Overall.
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I gave this book three and a half stars. I did think that the tips would be useful for me and on the whole I enjoyed reading about her daily life and habits. I admit I may be a little bit bias as she's a huge idol of mine and this book would be more satisfying for die hard fans of her (like me). On the whole it has been pretty satisfying for me. I did enjoy it and felt that it would be a good coffee table kind of book. I believe it is a great book for health and beauty and will help me a lot when I need time for myself!
If you get your hands on it do buy it!
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*All pictures and graphics do not belong to me. I take no credit at all for these.
** All opinions are mine and mine only.
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