A Glittering Success! (Dreams That Glitter: Our Story - Girls Aloud)

Member Name: mummy2harry

Product:	Dreams That Glitter: Our Story - Girls Aloud
Date:	24/11/08 (266 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun to read, lots of pictures, good quality book

Disadvantages: None unless you don't like Girls Aloud

I am a pretty big Girls Aloud fan, and I'm not bothered about admitting it either! I've been to see them in concert, I have their albums and a few DVDs, and I was thrilled last week to win 2 tickets to go to the recording of their Christmas special at ITV studios...roll on 2nd December, I'm so excited!! Anyway, so when I saw they were releasing a book detailing the making of the band and their life up until mid-2008, I knew it would be a book that I was going to read. I managed to get a copy from the library last week, and sat down to read excitedly, and I just couldn't put it down, finished the big chunk of a book in just 2 days!

Girls Aloud are one of the most successful British girl groups of all time, with 19 top 10 singles, 3 of which have been number ones. They started off on reality TV show Pop Stars: The Rivals all the way back in 2002, and have outlived pretty much all other reality acts, still going strong in 2008 with 6 albums under their belts, and the girls are starting to branch off into their own careers as well. Girls Aloud are Cheryl Cole, Kimberley Walsh, Nicola Roberts, Nadine Coyle and Sarah Harding, and they have all come together to write this book chronicling their rise to fame entitled Dreams That Glitter.

Before really knowing anything about the book, I thought it was going to be a standard type auto-biography book with a big chunk written by each girl about their childhood, Pop Stars experience and their life in Girls Aloud so far. Well, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that I was very wrong when I got the book home. Instead, the book is split up into sections which all the girls contribute to, and there is just a couple of pages dedicated to each girl dotted through the book with a bit about their childhood, and their general attitude. The format seemed quite fun, and I thought this was a clever ploy to keep readers interested, and it certainly worked on me!

When you open the book, you'll find that it isn't the normal sort of hardback book, instead the pages are thick glossy paper all the way through, with lovely photos of all the girls used throughout, many of which are taken from their own personal collections. Because of the good quality of the paper, the book is actually quite heavy for its size and does seem like a good quality book. The cover as well is quite nice looking, with a good picture of the girls with gold sparkly bits all over, making it catch your eye when its on your shelf. There is a nice introduction from the girls to the book at the beginning, then a contents list, and then the main narration begins.

As I said, the girls take it in turns throughout the book in narrating about the topic of conversation. They often write paragraphs at a time, then switch to another girl and this carries on until it is interrupted by a section about one of the band members. Cheryl's page is first, and is her talking about her upbringing in Newcastle, and how its helped her to be the person she is, and there are a few questions and answers as well. But thats as much detail as we get about each of them, leaving it open for any of the ladies to write a full autobiography of their life if they wish in the future. I liked this as it kept the focus on the band rather than its members, and the story of Girls Aloud.

It's an easy to read book, which isn't really taxing to the brain when yuo read it, but its just a pleasant and informative read for fans of the band. Some of the things in the story are quite surprising and really brings home that we are only shown what the TV people want us to see when they produce these reality shows. For example, I thought Louis Walsh was closely involved with Girls Aloud at the beginning but it turns out he basically ignored them, and then a while later met them and said "Oh, you're not fat anymore!". What a pig! Little revelations appeared throughout the book, although the girls refrain from slagging off any of the other girls in the Pop Stars show, and try to keep the book upbeat.

As the book goes on, it talks about how they grew close as a band, gained their own style, how they changed from playing University bars to big arena tours, and how things are moving forward for them, such as Cheryl's stint on new reality show The X Factor. They also don't shy away from personal issues which have been heavily publicised such as Nadine's relationship with Jesse Metcalfe, Sarah's public image and Cheryl and Ashley Cole's marital woes. I admired them all for discussing these personal issues in the book, but it does make you realise they are still people and it hurts when they get bad things said about them in the press. Their music isn't widely discussed but a few songs are mentioned and some surprises are revealed about their own choices of records, what they like and dislike and how their sound has changed and developed. Style is also briefly discussed, with a few pages dedicated to their tips and must-have items too. As you can see, there really is a bit of everything in this book!

I really did enjoy reading this book, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who likes the band or takes an interest in them at all. The writing style is fun to read, and the alternating writers keeps your interest and gives different viewpoints throughout the book. The pictures used are nice and bright, many from their own collections so are pictures we've not seen before and are good to see how much they've changed since the beginning of the band in 2002! It's a high quality book, with lovely thick glassy pages, shiny photos, and a pretty glittery cover. It'd make a good Christmas present for fans of Girls Aloud, and also very suitable for younger readers as there's no bad language or adult themes in detail. A fun read, and much, much better than I had expected!

ISBN: 978-0593061220. Published by Bantam Press in November 2008. The hardback contains 256 pages, and is available on Amazon for £7.49.

Official website: www.girlsaloud.com

Thank you for reading!

Summary: A good autobiography of the popular Girls Aloud