6. Broken Horses

Brandi Carlile. 2021.

I am going to start by saying that I have never been a huge  Brandi Carlilie fan, which really has never made any sense.  I like folk-country-rock music and she is undoubtedly a feminist icon.  For whatever reason, I never really got into the music and definitely did not know anything about her.  The audio version of the book is read by her and she plays her own and others' songs throughout.  Her tempo is such that even on high speed, you can still understand all the lyrics.  

This book felt painfully honest.  She did not make herself particularly likeable, in fact.  The book had a lot of the famous person memoir traits that I can't stand--particularly the one where it feels like they have to mention all these people they know in order to "give them credit" or explain why there were rifts.  For someone like me who has no idea who the players are in the industry, this takes up space and distracts from the actual story in  way I do not like.  It makes me feel like an outsider, which is the opposite of what I love about reading.  She writes factually, leaving me without the kind of reflection or insight that I appreciate in a good memoir.  If you are mostly looking for the stories behind songs you love and a timeline of projects she's done with various people who already know, then I can see why this would be a really fun read, but most of it was kind of lost on me.  

​Not recommended.

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