I thought I was going to hate this. And I kind of did, but I also found it relatable and came away feeling like I understand Rose McGowan a lot better.

Let me be clear: there are a lot of cringey things in this book. There are two main sources of cringe. The first is that Rose is often really condescending. Odds are if you picked this up, you're not a complete idiot. You probably have some critical thinking skills, but she doesn't seem to think any of us are on her level. It's kinda awkward. The other source of cringe is that she's "one of those" liberals who will do things like point out a person's race when it's not relevant to anything. But the book opens with a speech about how Rose is basically a hero and closes with a speech about feminism and a plug for everything she's got going on now, including her new skin care line. It's a cringe sandwich with a legitimately good book in the middle somewhere.

Despite the issues with this book, it's clear she's suffered some serious trauma. Reading this, it's easy to understand why she is where she's at. I get it. I really do. I've been through some similar stuff (though not at all on the same level) and can put myself in her shoes. I went in with some tidbits of information, but her story is so much worse than I was imagining. I'm impressed she's not in a catatonic depression.

Overall, the writing is both good and bad. With some serious editing, it could have been a five star book. Like if someone had said, "Hey, this part where you say Marilyn Manson hurt your feelings by trashing you on Howard Stern...maybe you should cut the part where you call him a 'typical cisgendered male' and mock his 'man ego.' At the very least, cut the 'Waaaah. Poor wittle baby' part because you just spent all this time talking about what I great guy he is and suddenly turning on him is going to give the readers whiplash."

It would have been so much better if she's left it at, (I'm paraphrasing here) "He was a great guy and I didn't expect him to trash me in the media and it really hurt because I thought we left things on good terms." All she had to do was stop there. There were so many parts like that, where she's telling a story and you really feel for her and then she just goes off and you're like yeah okay, uhh, maybe that cathartic rant should have gotten cut from the final draft because that's in there forever now.