Who Does She Think She Is? - Martine McCutcheon > Reviews > A little bit of 'humbleness' would not go amiss

Author's product rating:   

Degree of Information	High
How easy was it to read / get information from	Very easy
How interesting was the book?	Interesting because I'm interested in that subject
How useful was it?	Pretty useful
Would you read it again?	Probably not
Value for money	Good

Advantages:	Talks openly about her hard childhood, might help someone with similar experiences .
Disadvantages:	Comes across as rather shallow in places .   A lot of name - dropping .

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Now please don’t bombard with me rude comments telling me how nasty I am to say such a thing – I don’t mean to be offensive to Ms McCutcheon, but that phrase was going through my head all the time I was reading this book. I know that this book has been an inspiration for some people, to help them through bad times or bad memories. For that I applaud Ms McCutcheons honesty.

I have to admit to being rather disappointed by Martines autobiography. I had wanted to read it ever since it first came out in 2000, but just didn’t get round to getting hold of a copy until now.
It was an Easter present from my Mum and I was thrilled to finally get hold of it. I love autobiographies and the way that we can get a glimpse of people’s feelings on certain events in their life.
I felt that this book was more of a list of events, rather than how she felt during all of them.
I also felt uncomfortable at the amount of information she gave about certain events. For instance - losing your virginity should be a private matter and I felt that she told me too much about her experience.

I am close in age to Martine and am a singer/actress too. It is always fascinating to read about other people’s experiences in ‘showbiz’ and we seem to have taken Martine to our hearts somewhat in the past few years of her career. Maybe I, like many others, fell into the trap of thinking Martine was a lot like Tiffany – the part she played in Eastenders. The very likeable ‘tart with the heart of gold’ that she portrayed so brilliantly. She lifted the soap out of the mundane and gave it some real class in her portrayal of that character; she is a very talented actress in my book. But to think she is anything at all like the character of Tiffany is a wrong assumption.

Martine McCutcheon wrote this book with the help of Matthew Wright. We are never told anything about Mr Wright, I can only assume that he is a professional writer brought in to put Martines thoughts onto paper. Martine wanted to tell her story so far, to put the record straight on a lot of issues, and to share her childhood experiences which have made her who she is today. She has been treated badly by the press and so-called former ‘friends’ and I completely understand that she wanted to tell her side of the coin.

There are 19 chapters in this book. The first 4 chapters deal with Martines childhood, and the awful treatment of herself and her mother, by Martines biological father. I found these chapters to be quite hard to read in places. It is distressing to hear of the abuse suffered by these two women at the hands of Martines dad, and the money stuggles they had to endure at the same time. No wonder she turned out to be fighter…

We then follow Martine through early modelling jobs, onto stage school and her first jobs as a professional actress.
You may have seen footage on TV of her, of when she was a member of a pop group called ‘Milan’. She goes into quite a lot of detail in the book of her experiences in the record industry at that time, and it’s quite an eye-opener. If anyone thinks that ‘showbiz’ is glamorous – please take note!

Eastenders is covered quite extensively and it will shock some people to hear that it ain’t all rosy down in ‘the square’. Martine seems to have been treated appallingly by the BBC and by some fellow members of the cast – no wonder she was happy to leave and start on the next phase of her career.
We then move onto her pop career following her Eastenders departure, and finally there is some talk on her upcoming theatre career (she is now starring in My Fair Lady at the National Theatre in London).

Most of the time the book reads as one big name-drop. I hope this wasn’t deliberate. She tell us about her meetings with Michael Douglas, hinting that there may have been more there than just friendship from his direction, and then telling us a story about Michael Douglas and Catherine Zeta Jones not replying to a message she left them at their hotel. I wondered just what was the point of including this in the book? To imply that Catherine Zeta Jones was jealous that Michael had spent time with Martine a few years earlier? It certainly does read like that, and it leaves a nasty taste in the mouth if you ask me.

She chose the title of the book because apparently people have said this about her all her life. She also states in the book that women have been bitchy to her on many occasions – she thinks this is because they are threatened by her. This is quite possibly true, but I do wonder if she doesn’t help herself by seeming to be totally confident in her abilities as an actress/singer. Confidence is great thing, but none of us is infallible. If you don’t get real about your own short-comings, then you can come across as somewhat ‘cocky’.

I kept asking myself if I could be reading into the text more than was there, I didn’t want to believe that Martine thought she was as perfect as she makes out to be. She IS a talented lady, I don’t think many would contest that, but is she quite as talented as she seems to think she is?
The first chapter in the book is called ‘A Star Is Born’, could you seriously talk about yourself in such a way?

Because of her experiences as a child and then her fathers actions affecting her throughout her life, maybe she has built up a wall of confidence that she has to stand behind, just to keep on going in such a hard profession. It would explain things and I feel for her if that is the case.
I wish her all the happiness and success in the world, but just wish she could be a little humble every now and again.

To sum up:
Easy to read book with a lot of name-dropping. It often feels like a piece of tabloid writing or an article in ‘Hello’. You will feel sadness at her childhood experiences and admiration that she overcame those obstacles to fulfil her dreams. I personally will look forward to reading her autobiography when she reaches a good age, she seems to be very naïve for her years and it means that the book often lacks depth.
If you are a fan of Martine’s then I am sure you will enjoy it though, so please understand that this is a very personal opinion, and don’t let it stop you from forming your own.