Being Jordan - Katie Price

...here is my review of Being Jordan by Katie Price...

JUST WHO IS KATIE PRICE?
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I think it's inevitable that given the publicity she receives it would be hard not to know that Katie Price is actually the glamour model AKA Jordan. Not only is Katie Price a rather successful glamour model but she is also a successful businesswoman, author and of course wife of Peter Andre & mother to Harvey & Junior. ...
.../> With a reputation for being somewhat of a wild child, I hoped this book would make for interesting reading and provide an insight into the life of Jordan, celebrityville, how she feels when she is called an unfit mother and generally give her side of all the negative and positive press attention she has received in the past. Of course, this is just the the first instalment of a 2 books currently published, after all she is an astute businesswoman, ... more

I actually bought this book a while ago as part of a buy 2 get the third free. I had fancied reading it for a while but I wasn't of the inclination to actually go out and pay full whack for it, so getting it free was great.

I'm always curious when someone so young like Katie Price writes their autobiography, surely they should wait until their 50's to write one? Then you think about it, if Katie Price can cash in, then why shouldn't she? She has accomplished quite a lot at a young age and maybe she feels she will do better to continue her autobiographical writings throughout her life rather than wait till she's a has-been and no-one is interested in her any more.

As always, I am an open minded reader, I don't make judgements so here is my review of Being Jordan by Katie Price...

JUST WHO IS KATIE PRICE?
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I think it's inevitable that given the publicity she receives it would be hard not to know that Katie Price is actually the glamour model AKA Jordan. Not only is Katie Price a rather successful glamour model but she is also a successful businesswoman, author and of course wife of Peter Andre & mother to Harvey & Junior. Maybe though, we shouldn't mention her singing!

Jordan gets a lot of press and probably nowadays, Katie probably gets as much too, whether it's for her rather expansive chest region or causing uproar by her rather skimpy outfits and outlandish behaviour, it wouldn't be a week in the tabloids without a mention of either name!

With a reputation for being somewhat of a wild child, I hoped this book would make for interesting reading and provide an insight into the life of Jordan, celebrityville, how she feels when she is called an unfit mother and generally give her side of all the negative and positive press attention she has received in the past. Of course, this is just the the first instalment of a 2 books currently published, after all she is an astute businesswoman, she going to leaving enough to write a few more books in the future!

BETWEEN THE COVERS!
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The book starts by telling the reader a little bit about her life before Jordan. Katie tells the reader about her family, mother, Amy, step-father, Paul & brother Daniel. One moment that sticks out in the early part of the book is how her mother was 'sold' by her biological father to his business partner, Paul, in the front room of their house. Basically Paul asked her biological father to name his price to leave the family alone, he gave it and the rest is history!

The story then moves on to Katie, the wannabe model. Still at school Katie and her mother got involved with a photographer who started out very nice, both Katie & her mother trusted him. The photographer promised to make Katie a professional portfolio. Needless to say, that this photographer wasn't all he appeared to be. Katie Price describes the experiences she went through with the chap and i is quite disturbing, not just because of his behaviour but because her mother actually left her teenage daughter alone with him because they 'trusted' him, now if I was a mother there is NO WAY in the world I'd leave my teenage daughter with a man alone. I won't spoil the conclusion to this issue for readers who do want to read the book but I left this chapter feeling quite disturbed and although Katie does describe what happened in a fair detail, I did end up feeling sorry for her too.

We then take a turn into what Katie Price/Jordan is secondly famous for (aside from her enormous chest!), her love life. This really sets the tone for the book. Katie describes in detail how she met her first boyfriend, Jeff, how he impressed her with the fact he had a car. In bits, she makes it sound like she has been taken advantage of by him, but I doubt that's all entirely true, purely because you can almost believe her when she's detailing every minute detail but then when she want to be 'juicy' it almost sounds Vicky Pollard-ish and you don't know, as a reader, whether to believe it or not, I just took everything with a pinch of salt, she's nothing if not sensationalist. What I didn't like and that Katie continues to do when it comes to men in every part of the book is to go into details of their bedroom antics. Katie Price didn't like it when her former partners have done tabloid Kiss & Tell's on her but you get the impression she has tried to get her on back on them, which is fair enough, but she's been curtailed by her publisher and it ends up just sounding sleazy and bitter. As I have mentioned she does this routine for all the men she talks about in her book, Dane Bowers, Dwight Yorke & Gladiator, ACE to name a few.

Back to the boyfriend, Jeff, then, Katie mentions she became a wild child, flunking her GCSE's, not taking A-levels and working as a care assistant in a nursing home, this is something I could never have imagined Jordan doing, but it has obviously stayed with her and she talks quite profoundly about it. Later this story develops, she find out several revaluations about Katie and you cannot help but really feel for her, what she went through at such a young age no-one should ever have to do through & as she talks, you see there is more to Katie Price than Jordan.

We go through several of Katie's relationships in this book, in fact there is rarely a chapter in the book where she isn't involved with a man in some way, shape or form! I described the book to my husband as Jordan's life in boyfriends!

The next boyfriend, Gary coincided with Katie's career as a glamour model starting to take off. As seems fitting already, this chap wasn't much cop either but Katie did what Katie had to do, get her chest out for The Sun to get it all off her mind! The 'Gary' chapters are written in a style which, although easy to read and fairly interesting reading, you do really feel like you being talked at by Jordan, rather than Katie, who seemed so sweet and fairly reasonable at first, I think, this is where the book began to change for me, Jordan takes over Katie's author capabilities & from here on in, as her success sky rocketed, her writing style becomes slightly more defensive and possibly slightly more arrogant.....

As a reader it would have been quite easy to actually shut the book here and not read any more but there is something about Jordan that does keep your reading interest, so I carried on, learning about her relationship with Gary, ho he cheated on her and became jealous of her career and then how she met her 'Gladiator', ACE whilst still with Gary and stayed the night with the Gladiators star in a mobile home, I did have to laugh her, can you imagine Jordan slumming it in a mobile home? No, nor me!. We then read of her breast enlargement, how she was unhappy with the result because they were too small and that's why she has had 3 boob jobs, obviously not because she want to cash in on them at all then?

We almost, as a reader seem to fast froward a few months in her life where nothing much seems to happen, Katie talks about modelling shoots, her agent, Sam Bond and an unfortunate incident where she left her agent, to go with another, only to find herself ripped off and conned by this woman and she still harbours bitterness for monies not received. Also we get a minute glimpse into the bitchiness of the modelling world, but of course any reality is blurred because a) this is from Katie's perspective and b) of course Jordan is better (or so she thinks) than EVERY other model in the world and as such she'd play down anything remotely unglamorous!. Yet again though, the style starts to sound arrogant and bolshy which in these uninteresting parts is somewhat annoying but there again, could you expect anything less from this woman?!

We then learn about her time with the Jordan F1 team and a rather strange relationship, if you can call it that with Ralf Schumacher, moving on again we are told about her relationships with Dane Bowers, back to Ralf Schumacher, back to Dane. It seems so strange yet so real that Katie should NEED so much male attention to make her feel good. You do get the impression she is a serial relationship junkie and she does it admit that she is but gives no explanation as to why she feels this way & that's one of my disappointments in this book, Katie talks on the surface yet she rarely reveals her innermost feelings, maybe it's a closely guarded secret and it's the one piece of herself she keeps covered up but as a reader, who I hope is open minded, I feel so would make an enormous improvement in this book if she opened up as she did earlier in the book, cynics may at least see that as Jordan she has feelings too.

Moving onwards and upwards, whilst in her relationship with Dane Bowers, she talks very honestly about a toilet encounter with Posh, Victoria Beckham, in which both parties showed off their boob jobs to one another. This is mentioned very very briefly and as such I am kind of in 2 minds about whether this is real or fiction given the immense detail other less interesting issues have attracted! but then, that's Jordan.

Very much throughout the reminder of the book, Katie's bitterness is overwhelming, following the breakdown of her relationship with Dane Bowers, she almost becomes a bunny boiler, breaking into his flat, meeting for casual sex, mutual using one another. I find this terribly sad that a woman with so much going for her should find herself embroiled in so much hatred for another person, it is obvious she had very good friends and family around her and I find it so difficult to read that she should end up feeling like this, but there are other issues in book which do attribute to her feelings but I won't divulge for those who haven't yet read the book as I need to leave some gossip!

So what else does the book cover? Katie's talks to her audience about party lifestyle, her time at the Playboy mansion, photographers, how Jordan is who she is when she is working and nothing more. We also have brief relationships with other men, who are pretty non-descript as well.

We then delve into slightly more bitterness for the relationship with Dwight Yorke that gave her her son, Harvey. This relationship, wasn't her best and she fully admits that she did probably enter this on the rebound from Dane but it can't have been all bad as she does have her son as a result. What I find slightly disturbing about all but 1 of the relationships mentioned in the book is that WHY did she feel the need to stay with men who allegedly treated her badly, cheated on her and made her feel so awful about herself? Katie doesn't answer the critics on this one, again, slightly disappointing for me, but maybe I was expecting something much more profound from Katie Price and maybe that was a bit too much. Ending her past relationships in the book, we have her erm...'fling' with Gareth Gates, whilst she was pregnant with Harvey. I personally didn't like this element of her personality, she comes across as slightly heartless and ruthless but you get an overriding feeling of insecurity.

The reader then gets a brief glimpse into life with Harvey, Katie coming to terms with being a single mother and of course, dealing with Harvey's health problems. On this side of things we do see another side of Katie Price. A side that is far more likeable, a side that shows compassion and hope for the future of her son. Katie obviously relishes being a mother and values the role more than anything. I think this persona of Katie's is so much more interesting than her Jordan, brash exterior. Her writings still remain optimistic despite the current health of her son & I do find myself admiring her for how she has coped. My only complaint would be I'd like to hear more about her role as a mother.

Finally then, a short chapter on entering the Jungle, meeting Peter Andre and initially brushing him off. Katie is obviously Potty bout Peter, she talks in a different manner about him and we see the persona of Jordan taking a backseat and Katie shining through again. Katie also has to think about the consequences of one of her action towards Peter in the jungle and you can tell this had an effect on her, even though this part of the book is obviously a teaser for the next instalment!

CLOSING THE BOOK ON JORDAN
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All in all, an interesting book to say the least, especially for people like me who are nosey about celebrity and their lifestyles. I wouldn't for any minute say that Katie Price is the world's best author, her style is like an interview rather than a riveting read and you do get the impression that she is only giving away what she thinks will sell her books.

I'd really like to have seen more of the 'Katie' persona in this book, she comes across as 'Jordan' most of the time and I think even she gets her lines blurred as to where Jordan stops and Katie begins.

I did enjoy the book as a read before bed, in no way was it an immense page turner but I did find the brief insight into her life interesting but I don't feel I have learnt a lot about her other than she makes so much of her relationships that she feels the need to share the size and shape of their privates with a world wide audience after all she says kiss and tell on her have disgusted and upset her, why does she then try and get her own back?

I was disappointed that Katie maybe wasn't the feisty, unapologetic, strong willed woman I had hope her to be, with no regrets about any of her past conquests and actions. Katie is just normal, she's made mistakes, she has regrets but she is normal and maybe I was hoping this book to be the no holds barred bare and tell all that it was hyped up to be prior to publication.

Overall, I am 50/50 about whether I would recommend this, I'd probably err on the side of a yes but borrow it or get it as a freebie rather than rush out and buy it now. It's a good book if you want a non thinking, light reading book and enjoy celebrities but if you are looking for intelligence, wit and serious autobiographical writing, you're going to be disappointed.

My rating 6/10

Price: £7.99 shops or £5.99 with free P&P from Play.com 

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