Secondborn Book Reviews

  Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ “It’s Britney, bitch!” One of the most recognizable phrases since Britney Jean Spears spoke the words. Called the “Queen of Pop”, Britney has been captivating the world since she first caught the public’s attention with “Baby One More Time”. As a celebrity, she constantly had to face various public perceptions whether based on her music, interviews, or gossip (often false) spread by tabloids or people determined to use her for their own narratives. The Woman in Me, Britney Spears’ memoir, is her chance to finally take control of her life and her narrative.   In The Woman in Me, Britney Spears tells the story of her life. Holding nothing back, Britney lets the reader into her life. She discusses her ups and downs and how these affected her both mentally and physically. Bringing all the ways her career as a musician, a dream she had as a young girl, came to be and was manipulated, controlled and taken from her. A story of a woman constantly overstepped; it a...

   Dark Archives Book Review   Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Dark Archives by Megan Rosenbloom is a nonfiction book exploring the history of the medical community, primarily focusing on anthropodermic bibliopegy or the binding of books in human skin. Rosenbloom’s interest in books being bound in human skin leads her to discover more about medicine and corpse handling at the time of medical morals being less than what they are now and how these doctors’ would have managed to turn human flesh into leather. She takes the reader on the journey with her all over the world wherever rumors of books bound in human skin took her.   From the cover to the blurb, this book hooked me instantly. Death isn’t a very easy thing to talk about and the thought of human skin being used to bind books comes across as something from a horror movie. So discovering a book following the rumors and reporting them, proving them as fact not fiction is both terrifying and eye-opening. Anthropodermic books a...