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 enlarge | Author: Sheila Weller
Publisher: Atria
Category: Book
List Price: $27.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 1783
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 592
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.7 x 6.2 x 2
ISBN: 0743491475
Dewey Decimal Number: 782.421640922
EAN: 9780743491471
ASIN: 0743491475
Publication Date: April 8, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
 Just okay... April 28, 2008
8 out of 14 found this review helpful
I thought that I would love this book, but.... It is certainly well researched, but the editing leaves a lot to be desired. There is too much detail about inconsequential characters and the sentence structure is often confusing to say the least. It could have been edited down by about 100 pages and been terrific, but unfortunately, I found it tedious.
Sorry - love the ladies, did not love the book.
No Secrets April 24, 2008
46 out of 47 found this review helpful
Everything in GIRLS LIKE US will be amazingly familiar to those of us born in the bay boom, and yet Sheila Weller, a talented if erratic prose stylist, brings us to emotional places that will be new to all but those most intimate with the trio of songwriters whose lives, she declares, form a "journey of a generation." I don't know if I'd go that far, but I'm not a woman, and Weller's argument is that King, Simon, and Mitchell pushes back the barriers for women specifically, "one song at a time."
The cryptic one remains Carole King, whom Weller just can't illuminate in any meaningful way. Her life was amazing--up to a point, then it stopped being of any interest at all, which is a shame. We hear again and again how she wrote all those Brill Building masterpieces before she was 21, and broke down under the strain of a troubled marriage to a high-stakes husband and lyricist, Gerry Goffin, coming out the other end with an LP. Tapestry, that everyone loved. Then what happened? Bad men galore, attracted to her wealth. She once estimated that every time she divorced a man, it cost her a million dollars. Weller gives us all the facts ad nauseam but we always wonder, why did King do this to herself?
Carly Simon, on the other hand, who cooperated with Weller extensively or so it seems, comes off as nearly normal. Of the upper, upper middle class, Simon was to the manor born and the icy, plangent chords of her first song, "That's the Way I Always Heard It Should Be," gave notice that the old New Yorker fiction writers of the 40s and 50s hadn't died, they had just rolled over and told Carly Simon the news. Though obviously spoiled and cosseted by her own wealth, Simon doesn't seem spoiled; her reactions throughout, even meeting and marrying the drug-zombie James Taylor, are always understandable and sympathetic.
Joni Mitchell isn't sympathetic per se, but she has the integrated personality of the genius totally in love with herself and obsessed with her own reflection, so she's great in a special way. Weller pokes amused fun at Mitchell's vanity and enormous self-esteem, but we get the picture that, in her opinion at any rate, Mitchell actually is pretty f--ing amazing. Does our society have it in for women who want to be artists? Mitchell's encounter with the aged, reclusive Georgia O'Keeffe seems like a emblem of a certain baton-passing, as is Carly Simon's relationship with former First Lady Jackie Kennedy. Weller is OK about male-female relationships, but in this book at any rate she's more interested in the ways women deal with each other.
It's nearly a biography of five people, not just three, as there is so much about James Taylor you will never need to read another word about him if you have this book on your shelf; and for some reason there's tons of material about Judy Collins. I wonder if Weller proposed a book with King, Mitchell, Simon, and Collins, and some editorial board nixed the addition of Collins--but there was so much good material about Collins, Weller kept it in anyhow. She is the Vanity Fair writer supreme, whose motto is that no sentence is complete without some action and punch, and the best way to get that is to string along many words with hyphens to invent new forms of adjectival excitement. You won't be able to read for more than a few minutes without being hit on the head by Weller's mad stylings--here's a typical hyphenfilled sentence about the Eagles: "Their at-home-in-Death-Valley image and bleating-lost-boy-in-expensive-boots sound had become era-definingly successful." (Ten hyphens in a mere 20 words! Sheila Weller is era-definingly successful at inventing a new form of writing--like the classic circus act when a small VW would pull up to center ring and then clown after clown would prance out. Then more clowns--then still more. She's pretty amazing and GIRLS LIKE US is a book that, for all its flaws, convinces us roundly in its larger arguments and dazzles with its wide-ranging portraits of artistic life in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
 Absolute Perfection April 24, 2008
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
I first heard about Girls Like Us from Dennis Elsas, a DJ on WFUV radio in New York, and quickly read the Vanity Fair excerpt. I was afraid it would read like a Kitty Kelley biography, but--thankfully--I was wrong. I usually borrow most of my books from the library (sorry, Amazon), but I pre-ordered Girls and counted the days until its arrival. I've wanted to take off from work to read it. Like other reviewers have said, this is a read you won't want to put down.
Girls Like Us is a thoroughly researched book about three women who were catalysts of change during a pivotal era in our nation's history. Women--and men--who lived through the 60s and early 70s will love the walk down memory lane and, a la Sex in the City where women discuss which character they're most like, women will decide whether they're a Carol, a Joni (as I am), or a Carly. Sheila Weller really earned her royalties here--plenty of juicy gossip about all three women. But more importantly, Weller gets into the artists' music, the story behind many of the songs (who knew?!), the musicians who played with them, an insider's view of the music industry. The book is worth the price just for the extensive Bibliography and Discography.
I just told a friend today that Girls Like Us should be required reading for college women's history courses. If you know a woman who missed coming of age during this wonderful era, show them what they missed and gift them with a copy of Girls Like Us. Before your settle into your favorite spot with your new book, go down to the basement or up to the attic, dust off your copy of Tapestry, Blue, and Anticipation, and sing along with the girls like you.
Gossipy and informative April 22, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Some of the writing is a bit clunky, but if you really like all three singers, this is must-have book. It's interesting that only Carly Simon cooperated with the author, because there's is so much detail about King and Mitchell, too. The details of King's life are really interesting - of the three, her personal life is probably the least known. The author really captured the unique qualities - songwriting, singing, and mapping out their careers - of each of them. I think this would be an informative book for younger women who weren't fortunate enough to hear these musicians at the start of their careers. For those of us who did, and followed their musical evolution avidly, it's gratifying to see that they are all still using their creativity to make new musical connections. The author clearly respects her subjects. Oh, James Taylor makes many appearances, too.
It's The Economy April 22, 2008
11 out of 36 found this review helpful
"Girls Like Us," a new triple-headed biography of Carole King, Joni Mitchell, and Carly Simon, by New York Times bestselling author Sheila Weller, weighs in at 530 pages, plus pictures, plus notes, and what an effort it must represent. Weller, an experienced journalist who specializes in popular culture, has clearly dug deep, and interviewed many, in limning the lives of these three significant female figures in the music of the latter 20th century. And, from first word to last, she has a thesis: that their music changed lives, particularly women's. Nor can there be any doubt that this trio of artists lived and worked through the great contemporaneous feminist movement. And, by the way, that they're now all grandmothers!
Carole King was born Carol Klein in Brooklyn, in spring, 1942 (I, too, was born in Brooklyn: however, she's a few months younger than me.) By the age of 18 she was already a songwriting married woman and mother, and success came early. She and her husband at the time, Gerry Goffin, were based in New York's Brill Building, famed home of most popular songwriters for a decade or two. In the late 1950's, early 1960's, the pair penned some of nascent rock and roll's earliest, biggest hits. "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow," for the Shirelles; "He's So Fine," for the Chiffons; one of the greatest of New York songs, "Up on the Roof," for the Drifters. Also, "The Loco-Motion," "Something Tells Me I'm into Something Good," a bouncy hit I've always liked, for the English group, Herman's Hermits; even "You Make Me Feel Like a Natural Woman," surely a natural wonder, for Aretha Franklin; and "He Hit Me and It Felt Like a Kiss," a song I've always hated, for the Cookies. Then King moved on, became a Los Angeles lady of the canyon, Laurel, I think --and in the early 1970's released "Tapestry," a monster, greatly-influential album that broke many sales records. Me, I fell in love with rock and roll, as introduced by Allan Freed on New York radio, early, at about age 12, with "Life Could Be a Dream," and I have many - most--of these early hits, as done by the original groups, in my collection. I always particularly loved girl group sounds; Weller identifies the Shirelles and the Chantels as the earliest successful girl groups, and I have both their records. But I don't have a single Carole King record per se, and not only don't I own "Tapestry," I've never even heard it. Was living in the United Kingdom at the time of its release, and whereas they speak English over there, and the record sold very well, it didn't interest me: too reductionist for my taste.
Joni Mitchell was born Roberta Joan Anderson, of Nordic background, on the vast Canadian prairie. She, like King, felt herself stardom-bound, from a young age, this time as a folksinger. She was, helpfully, a beautiful blonde, and she achieved stardom as a folksinger/songwriter, in the early 60's. This was the greatest era for folk music of the 20th century, when Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Judy Collins, among others, were bursting into stardom. Mitchell wrote "Clouds," and "The Circle Game" early, also relocated to LA and became a "Lady of the Canyon." She continued to write; deeply personal songs at first, then, in the 70's, less so. She, too, was too reductionist for my taste; I bought my first Joni Mitchell record just a year or two ago.
Carly Simon is somewhat younger than Weller's other two subjects: she was born into a wealthy, intellectual, influential Manhattan family: her Jewish father was a partner in important publishing company Simon & Schuster. Simon is, of course, one long-legged, well-educated, classy girl; she married James Taylor, another folkie star, in the 1970's and had several big hits, "Anticipation;" and the feminist favorites "I Always Thought That's the Way It Should Be;" "You're So Vain." Will I surprise you by saying I have none of her records? Too reductionist?
Weller has amassed a wealth of detail about her three subjects, and there's primo gossip to be found here. Simon became close friends with Jackie Kennedy Onassis; we're told that American aristocrat Onassis didn't mind using a Porto-San with the hoi polloi when necessary. From our reading, we must conclude that James Taylor was a boy who really got around. Weller tells us he had a thing with Joni Mitchell, and mentions that he also hung with Carole King. But it sure feels as if all three women fell in love every Tuesday; and ultimately, I wearied of tracking three sets of friends, lovers, husbands, and session musicians.
However, my biggest problem with Weller's book is with its thesis: that these three women's songs actually changed women's lives. I grant you, they were resonant to many women, including me, who lived through it all, and some have lasted into the 21st century. But really, "Amazing Grace" is an amazingly beautiful abolitionist song that has long outlived slavery, and is still being sung. Did it kill slavery? Nope. Damage it, sure. The beautiful "We Shall Overcome;" was any song more central to the 1960's anti-segregation movement? Still being sung. But did it end segregation all by itself? And consider the "Marseillaise," French national anthem arising out of their revolution: beautiful, stirring, still being sung. But did it create that revolution? Be that as it may, at one point, Weller quotes a music business figure as saying that "it was a matter of people being guided by your music, and using it for the soundtrack of their lives." Certainly, I can agree with this more limited claim. But as to explaining what made the 60's and the woman's movement what they were?
First, you had the Vietnam War. Then, development of a low-dosage anti-pregnancy pill that many women could, and did, take: for the first time in human history they could plan their lives and careers just as men could. Furthermore, during the 1960's, three major American corporations metastasized, creating thousands of their own jobs, and hundreds of thousands of support jobs elsewhere: Xerox, Internal Business Machines, and Minnesota Mining and Manufacture. For the first time in history, most girls could, and did, get jobs - and those who couldn't sold candles to their employed sisters. As James Carville so memorably put it during Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign: "It's the economy, stupid."
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