Access Today Rememberings Penned By Sinead OConnor Released As Kindle

Most of the press and coverage of Sinead OConnor esp, since the Pope picture ripping incident on SNL inpaints her as bizarre and controversial, Though interviews around the release of this autobiography speak to her “being healthy” finally, after reading this book I am not convinced she is anywhere near “healthy”.
Like many autobiographies by non authors, the writing is more in her spoken language Irish slang and all and the tense used is confusing mostly present tense which makes you unsure as to whether this is how she perceived events in her life at that time or as she sees them now.
It is likely both as she was and as she is since while she speaks of undergoing much treatment and consideration of her mental health, Sinead is unapologetic of her life.
She takes shots at many people in the music industry and in her life including Prince and Dr Phil and embraces/ holdsup favorably an odd assortment of characters.
It is very strange to read of her having four children by four different fathers only one whom she married and how she perceived herself as a mother seems like she regards herself as a good one and “relationships “ with these fathers.
She give details of each childs conception and seems to label herself as a slut with pride, Very strange. Along with her spoken style of writing comes a choppy and non linear organization of material, Skip the section where she recounts each of her albums as who knew she had put out this many, Plenty of assorted “nuggets” that give you pause: her mom driving into oncoming traffic with her in passenger seat in an attempt to harm her her rebellious behaviors like stealing with seemingly no regrets a discussion about going numberon tour busses a very odd encounter with Prince that includes a pillow fight with him and a “loaded” pillow Prince might have been as bonkers as Sinead some very odd stories of her reverence for Muhammad Ali and guardian angel encounters.
and her love of weed and need to smoke cigarettes constantly, The book ends with her story of seeking mental health treatment in the US including some intervention by Dr Phil but that whole tale just makes you wonder how she isnt still a resident in a psych ward.
I am by no means lacking compassion for those with mental health issues, Its just the bravado or naivety that O Connor approaches her mental illness that leaves you saying YIKES, I wish her well and hope she does not return to recording or touring as I suspect she would be better off staying away from the public pressures.
Sinéad OConnor was massive when we were kids, Anyone my age will remember the first time they heard Mandinka or Nothing ComparesU, Her voice was so unique, really sensational, I still love to play her music really loud,

This is her memoir, published a few weeks ago, I listened to the audiobook, The laughs, the anger and the moments where the emotion catches in her throat you get it all, its immersive, and I found it sad.


I

thought the first half of the book was compelling, Sinéad tells us about her upbringing, the early days of her music career and the birth of her first child.
She had a tough upbringing and the abuse she endured at the hands of her mother would break your heart.


She goes into great detail on the making of her records and her inspirations which I enjoyed, There is a fascinating and truly bizarre story in the book about her encounter with Prince, It is pure gold. In fact, Id nearly have read the whole book just to read that story,

I respect Sinéad and the stance she took in speaking out about the cover up of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church at a time in Ireland when it was completely taboo.
She was vilified by sections of society and the media, and treated as a pariah when really she was the only one telling it like it was.


The second half of the book drifted though, The second half actually, scratch that quite a lot of the book is taken up with her own personal faith in god, and her dabbling in Rastafarianism before ultimately converting to Islam.
Each to their own but it was too much for me, It felt almost voyeuristic at times listening to some of it, her vulnerability is palpable, despite her tough exterior,

I wish Sinéad well, I hope she has a network of really supportive people around her, I could not rate this book, I thought it was brilliant in parts, inconsistent and rambling in others, Sinéad is a unique talent and a unique person, and Im glad I read it, The book is authentically Sinéad, over the past few months, i've become more and more entranced by sinéad o'connor, her strength, her integrity, her bewitching voice, her wicked sense of humor, my friend gave me the arc for this, and i was so honored i could have cried,

it's a difficult memoir, sometimes brilliant and sometimes sharp, sometimes clear and sometimes muddled, but it's completely sinéad.
it'll never happen but i'd just love so much to meet her someday and ask her questions, Rememberings by Sinead O'Connor is one of the most heartfelt memoirs I have read, I don't simply mean that she opens up, I think most memoirists do to some extent, but that she "talks" to us as if it really matters that she conveys what she was thinking and what she thinks now.
This memoir is truly for her own happiness and for our understanding, I'm not sure she cares, nor that she should, whether every reader agrees with her perspectives, but she tries very hard to make sure we can understand her actions as well as she does.


This is very conversational, both in tone and structure, In the same way a very long discussion with a friend can meander back and forth this book does so as well.
Not to a distracting or detrimental extent though it does take a few chapters to catch on to her authorial voice.
After that, it is almost like sitting in the room listening to her,

All of the moments in her life that are famous, or infamous, are covered, as well as some extraordinary lesser known moments.
Knowing how she grew up will offer the reader some insight into why she has approached some of these moments as she did.


I would recommend this to both fans of hers I consider myself part of that group as well as readers who just like memoirs.
This will read a little different from most but your effort will be rewarded,

ed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley, I caught the music video for Sinéad OConnors cover of Princes Nothing ComparesU on TV as a young child, and I never forgot it: That iconic closeup of a beautiful woman with a shaved head and powerful voice, intensely staring at the viewer with two solitary tears of longing rolling down her cheeks.
Over twenty years later, I decided that this memoir presented the perfect opportunity to finally dig deeper into her discography, and learn more about an intriguing artist who, time and time again, has been at best misunderstood, and at worst vilified by the media because of her mental health issues, and controversial actions to call out hypocrisy.


I knew virtually nothing about Sinéads life and music going in, yet Rememberings was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, based entirely on what the mostly unkindly media has taught me about her over the years: Authentic, rambling, and unusual.
Which arent necessarily bad thingsbut coupled with her mix of selfconfidence and selfdeprecation, the result is an incredibly conversational, somewhat repetitive, and very scattered memoir.
She writes about her past life in the present tense, which was a peculiar choice, and poetic passages alternate with ones where she uses words such as “aint”, “dunno”, and fourteen instances of the slang word “square” throughout the book, which sounds nothing short of archaic, but endearing in an odd sort of way.
To be fair, she does warn that shes written it as if she were having a conversation with the reader right up frontand that due to her mental health issues, a good chunk of her life wont be covered, because she cant or doesnt want to remember or share.

“My intention was to put all the pieces of the jigsaw that was me out on the floor and see if I could put it together.
To be understood was my desire, Along with that was my desire not to have the ignorant tell my story when Im gone, Which was what would have happened had I not told it myself, ”

From a narrative standpoint, the beginning is the strongest and most linear: She covers her childhood, upbringing, emotionally and physically abusive mother, and how she came to music, more or less up to the immediate aftermath of her tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL.
What follows does the book title justice: It becomes more of a collection of scattered anecdotes, in turn funny, insightful, mystical, or just plain eccentric.
Theres a chapter about a bizarre evening at Princes house, she gives context to each album in her backcatalogue, reflecting back to those times in her life, and she touches on her mental breakdown from a few years back, as well as the horrendous Dr.
Phil interviewnot in much depth, but offering her perspective with candor, She writes from a place of honesty and has remained true to herself despite many changes throughout the years, but even so, shes a bundle of contradictions: for instance, she refers to herself as asexual, but she talks about being sexually attracted to all sorts of people throughout the book.


Along with music, motherhood and spirituality are the most important aspects of her life, Her ongoing, lifelong spiritual quest she may have waged war against the Catholic Church, but shes an ordained priest in a breakaway sect, deeply interested in Rastafarianism, and has most recently converted to Islam is something I cannot relate to at all, which is probably why I didnt enjoy the memoir quite enough to say “I liked it”.
The book seems almost to be written for her own benefit rather than for a wider audienceits full of what are essentially short tributes to her collaborators, lovers, husbands, children, and their fathers, and it reads like an attempt to put misunderstandings aside.


Someone who is already a fan of her work will probably get something out of this anyone who dislikes her wont be swayed and someone interested and openminded, but with a more or less blank slate, like me, will likely fall somewhere in the middle.
Rememberings probably wont be remembered, but I am writing this as a newly converted albeit casual fan of her musical oeuvre, and I appreciate it for opening that door for me.
I think she's an intense and interesting soul, but she conveys it best in her music,



Note: I received an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review, .