Do you remember the song “I’ve Never Been to Me” by Charlene? I HATE this song. Viscerally. With a passion. I remember the first time I heard it. I was in college, years after the song was popular, and I thought it was a joke. It’s bad. I feel like you should know that going into this review. I detest this song.

You may be asking why, if I so adamantly dislike the song, would I choose to read the book about the artist and the song? Because to be funny, my friend Kenneth gave it to me for my birthday. I’m a good friend, so I read it. And as much as I loathe the song, I went into reading the book with an open mind. Maybe Charlene’s story would change my mind (BIG maybe), or at least make me a little less hostile towards the song. It did not. So if you love this song and you love Charlene (who I am sure is a perfectly lovely person in real life) you may want to stop reading now.

The song “I’ve Never Been To Me“, if you’re unfamiliar, is all about how a woman who lives the high life and is successful isn’t really content, and will end up alone and empty because she’s not married with a child or children- that is what completes her. You can see the lyrics here. This book is supposed to show the parallels between Charlene’s life and the song. Except it doesn’t, and I don’t think Charlene sees that.

And now, finally, onto the review.

Charlene wrote this book with someone called Jordan Paramor. A Google search shows me that Jordan is a ghost writer and journalist. Apparently there was a publisher, but I feel there’s scant evidence of a decent editor.

One thing I want to address early is that Charlene clearly suffers from some form of mental illness- she often refers to crippling depression she suffers and that her mother suffered. Anything that I say in this review is not intended to make light of any form of mental illness, but I am going to offer my opinion on some of her choices and decisions.

The first thing that bugged me about this book is that Charlene is American. She grew up in Los Angeles. She’s lived in the UK (her husband is British) but currently lives in California- and has for years. Yet the book, likely due to Jordan Paramor living in the UK, uses UK spellings and slang. It’s pretentious and precious.

There are things that felt contrived or didn’t really ring true to me in the book. The story starts out with how much Charlene’s family loved her and she loves them, but everyone at school hates her and bullies her for no good reason. She’s friendless. Like a lot of young girls, she is critical of her looks. But in the midst of all her angst about her looks, someone nominates her for a “Miss Dream Girl” competition and she goes all in for it and wins first place. That comes across like faking not liking your looks but secretly knowing people think you’re attractive and you know it, too.

As a teenager, she starts trying to meet famous people and is hanging out with guys far too old for her. She falls madly in love with a wannabe musician with a drug problem, alienates her family, gets pregnant and runs off with her boyfriend, marries him, and lives in extreme poverty while trying to make it in the music business because she wants to be a STAR. She names her daughter Chadney (yes) and has the sense to let the father’s parents raise Chadney because Charlene and her husband are clearly not mentally or financially prepared to raise a child. And the husband’s an abusive addict (because of course he is).

Here’s the first instance of a lack of editing in the book. Charlene goes on and on about how much she loves her horses (the only thing she was good at aside from singing, and who ground her and bring her peace) but when she finally (rightly) leaves the abusive husband for the first time, she says “… I even left my car and my horses behind. But I felt like I didn’t need them. This was going to be a new life for me, and I could always replace anything I needed.”

This bothered me so much and is an early example of where I felt an editor would have come in handy. To so cavalierly dismiss “beloved” animals as not needed and replaceable makes Charlene sound soulless. I understand getting out of an abusive situation often means leaving with only the clothes on your back. I’m not judging for leaving the animals behind. I’m judging the tone with which this part was written.

The narrative in this book is colloquial and repetitive. Wonder/Wonderful were used 66 times in the book. Happy occurs 81 times. Two consecutive paragraphs start with “I ended up…” The book needs some serious editing.

But I think what bothered me most is that Charlene comes across vapid and entitled and she doesn’t learn from her mistakes.

As is typical of some kinds of women, and reminiscent of her earlier “no one at school liked me”, any time Charlene shares a stage with a woman more famous than she, that more famous woman doesn’t like/ignores/is mean to Charlene. I’d almost say it was slightly racist because she calls out Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross, but she also includes Petula Clark in the mix so I think Charlene just has a victim complex. Of course all the famous men she name drops are charming and adore her.

After her tumultuous marriage and a few other misadventures, Charlene predictably finds god. She attributes recovering from a serious illness to god’s magical powers and then talks about giving her life over to him, yet thinks nothing of carrying on for years with a married man, which seems a bit at odds with one of the Ten Commandments.

The thing that grated my nerves the most in the book, though, is Charlene wants success and fame and money more than anything else- in fact, she feels like she deserves them.

“All this success and money I’m owed? I have to get it back.” Note that she signed a bad contract, ignoring advice to have a qualified lawyer review it and make sure it was fair and didn’t put her in financial jeopardy. It cost her heavily, but again, she’s the victim and doesn’t acknowledge that it was stupid to not read the contract and more stupid still to not have a lawyer read it.

“I know that I’ve lost so much in my pursuit of fame and fortune, but I just want what is owed to me. I lost out on so much money, and my career should not have gone the way it did. I was good, I had talent, and I still do.”

“I know myself pretty well and so I know that once I’ve had more success, I’ll be able to let out a deep breath and say ‘I’ve done it. The battle is won and the quest is over.’ I know it’s hard for people to understand that and people try to analyze me or tell me to let go of things, but it’s not that easy. I lost what I should have had – and should still have now- because of a bad contract.“

Yet, she never seems to learn from her mistakes. She jumps at any opportunity that she thinks will make her famous without vetting it. When she’s paid any advance of any sort, she appears to spend it all and save none of it, so she and her current husband and their children don’t have a financial safety net. She separates her family for months at a time while she pursues these half baked ideas that she wants to make her famous.

It’s almost laughable since in her song, being content with a man who loves you and children is what should complete a woman. She still is the person she’s preaching about not being- but that she thinks she is.

“I think until you learn lessons in life you will keep making the same mistakes. Somewhere along the way I must have subconsciously realized I deserved more.”

There’s a lot more I could say, but I think you get the point with what I’ve written here. I’ve Never Been to Me is, I think, another attempt at fame and money, but instead is more of a discontented mother cursing at her life. I still hate the song.