The Woman in Me is Britney Spears’ memoir, recently published in October 2023. Spears, of course, needs no introduction; she is the princess of pop, an icon of the early 2000s, one of the highest grossing musical artists of all time. If you don’t know her from her catalogue of hits (Oops!… I Did it Again, Toxic, Gimme More), you might remember her face from the tabloid covers in the supermarket checkout line (Spears’ fame peaked at the height of celebrity gossip magazines and paparazzi culture). From a distance, Spears’ story reads like the classic rise and fall of a childhood star: her success was fast and bright and all-consuming at a level that couldn’t be sustained, and eventually—inevitably—it broke her. However, as seen in recent news, there was more to her public breakdown than meets the eye. In 2021, Spears went to court against her father, fighting to end a conservatorship that she’d been living under for the past thirteen years. The media rallied behind her with the hashtag #FreeBritney, and as it became apparent that her father had been essentially taking away all of her rights for his own personal gain, the court ruled in her favor. Now, with this newfound freedom, Spears is sharing everything. The Woman in Me is her response to all the people (family members, journalists, paparazzi) who have tried to tell her story for her—she’s taking the narrative back, and rightfully so.

Growing up in the 90s and early 2000s, it was basically impossible to not be a Britney Spears fan, and I loved her along with everybody else. So, when her memoir came out, I knew I had to read it if only for the satisfaction of hearing all the good gossip in her own words. And yes, there are plenty of juicy tidbits about her early tour days and her relationship with Timberlake (she even explains the denim-on-denim couple’s outfit), but the book ended up being so much bigger than that. It’s definitely not a literary work of art—the writing is a little clumsy and even reads like the transcript of an interview at points—but reading about all the ways she’s been openly, unfairly mistreated was like a punch in the gut. With her context, all of the moments the media had labeled as “train wrecks” feel grossly misinformed; her strength and almost childlike hope in the face of all of that past trauma is both admirable and heartbreaking. The Woman in Me is fun and simple, but not stupid, and serves as a good reminder that celebrities are humans, too, who deserve the same empathy as the rest of us—highly recommend for all the Britney fans out there.

I’d recommend this book to…

• Anyone who loves a buzzy celebrity memoir that ends being surprisingly powerful… it’s similar in style to Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
• Anyone interested in watching a woman navigate the demands of stardom… it’s similar in theme to the Netflix documentary Miss Americana
• Anyone looking for something intimate and easy-going… it’s similar in tone to Have I Told You This Already? by Lauren Graham