Dreams That Glitter - Girls Aloud - Sparkly Book! (Dreams That Glitter: Our Story - Girls Aloud)

Member Name: newby2

Product:	Dreams That Glitter: Our Story - Girls Aloud
Date:	23/03/09 (96 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Get to know that group more

Disadvantages: Not a very good book for a man

Dreams that Glitter - Our Story - Girls Aloud.....



I have never really been a massive fan of Girls Aloud, I mean I have liked their music and of course followed them through the stages of the TV show Pop Stars the Rivals but I had never liked them enough to go out and buy a CD of theirs. However, I have been very much getting into reading auta lot of auto biographies and biographies in the last few years and so when I saw this is Woolworth's (RIP) for less than £10 I snapped it up.

The RRP of this book is £14.99 pence and both this price and the price I paid are,I feel, reasonable amounts for what you are getting. The book itself is very well put together with a lot of pictures from the beginning of the girls grouping right up to when the book was published. It is in a hardback format and the pages inside are that of a high gloss, high standard finish.

The book is set out in 17 different sections each giving an account on different events such as their auditions for Pop Stars the Rivals, which is documented well in the first section entitled "Girls on a Mission". This section not only follows them through their first performances it also gives a little background on each of them. The chapter has each of the girls giving information and it is headed with the girls name depending on which one of them is telling their experiences. It is rather funny to see some of the old pictures of when they were just staring out because some of them, especially Cheryl Cole, just looks so different to how we see them today.

The second section is 8 pages long and all about Cheryl Cole. This gives a small insight into what Cheryl is about now and where she has come from to get where she is today. It gives key facts on one page such as birthday, style and pet peeves. We then get a few pages of Cheryl writing about herself then the section is finished by by a question and answer type interview with questions such as, "What's your favourite food?". Each of the girls have one of these sections and each follow this pattern of information. These sections I feel are particularly good because everyone is bound to have a particular favourite of the group and the one on one type feel you get from these sections is able to focus more on that particular person rather than the group as a whole.

The other sections I will list below and give a brief description as to what the section relates to:

"Girls Under Pressure" - This 26 page section goes into how the girls felt going through the process of getting to the final live performances on Pop Star the Rivals and how they dealt with all the nerves, upset and general emotional turmoil. They all seemed so young and although it appears a piece of cake what they are doing when watching it on telly (well I thought so) a lot of what is written you could understand to be hard to deal with.

"Being Girls Aloud" - This part of the book gives insight into what it took for the girls to achieve their first number one single and generally how they dealt with being a "no-one" to becoming a "someone" in such a short space of time. All of the band recall the struggles in the first couple of years of being in the band from their management (or lack thereof) to the fact they were literally growing from girls in to women in front of the country. This section is rather good because it felt as though I was getting a lot of information that I hadn't previously known before reading the book.

"Girls up Against it" - After the success of their first single the girls tell of how they felt when their second single was released and the fact that they felt the general consensus was that they were bound to be a one hit wonder. With their moody image coming across in the forefront on their first two singles the band try something more upbeat for their third and this idea sets their career path on the right tracks for future success.

"Girls Keeping it Real" - This small 18 page section describes how they felt with the change from playing at small gigs such as universities one after the other to hitting the big time and playing at high class venues. They talk a bit in this section about money and the things they had when they were just starting out in the band to the things that they have now. They also like to say how they have their own personal boundaries on what they would and wouldn't buy or waste money on.

"Girls on Top" - This part of the book gets the groups view on what they feel they have achieved from being in the band and what they hope to achieve in the future. Of course they have done very well for themselves and it does come across that they do all feel quite lucky to be in the position that they are in and they still appear to be fairly grounded.

"Girls in Love"- Of course just by the title it is plainly obvious as to what this section is all about but still I feel this is a very valuable part of the book and again I got a lot of information that I didn't know about the less public members of the band. Cheryl talks about her wedding to Ashley Cole and other member talk about break ups because of the stress the band put on the relationships.

"Gossip Girls" - This section of the book writes of the girls take on the paparazzi and how they are written about in the papers. We hear of how the girls feel about bad photos and being caught at the wrong time by the flash of a bulb and how sometimes a photo is just not what you want!

"Go Girls" - The first tour Girls Aloud did was back in May 2006 and this part of the book describes feelings that they all had about going on tour and the tour itself. It then goes onto write of other tours that the girls have done since that time and their ways of coping with being on tour and away from home.

"Cover Girls" - This is by far my best section and it talks of how each member of Girls Aloud has a different style and a different product that they can't live without. It gives their take on diets, clothes, colonic irrigation and much more. This is quite a long section but again it gives a lot of what feels like inside information that I had not previously known.

"Girls with Attitude" - Passions was a ITV programme which followed members of the group turning their hand to something other than what they are known for, namely singing and dancing. Nicola tried out fashion, Sarah gave the game of Polo a try and Kimberley tried out for Westend shows. This wasn't a programme I watched and I relly had no interest in watching it at the time but these pages talk a bit about why the girls did the show and what they got out of it. The chapter also talks about the other pies they have their fingers in and again this part of the book is a great page turner.

"Q&A's Girls Aloud" - of course this section is a couple of pages where the girls are asked on question, which is: "What's Next for Girls Aloud" and each member has a paragraph or two writing about what they feel the future has in store for Girls Aloud.

All in all, I feel this book was a brilliant purchase and made at a good price. I am not sure if it is one that I would read again however but I may flick through it from time to time if I ever forgot anything. I felt I got a lot of information out of this book that I didn't know before I read it and this to me is the sign of a good biography. It also made me like the band ,as a whole, much more than I had previously and I even warmed to certain members of the group who I had a rather negative image of.

I would say it is done in rather a girl like manner and a lot of the sections are quite feminine in the subjects that they talk about and how the girls answer questions. I don't particularly think that it is aimed at the male reader market however I can't see why a man still wouldn't enjoy reading about them if indeed he was interested in the band.

This book is a good read for anyone with the slightest bit of interest in this band and even for those who just like a good biography read. It feels new and modern and really does have a lot going for it. A five star rating is in order here and a very high recommendation.

255 pages
Published by BantamPress
ISBN 9780593061220 - hardback
ISBN 9780593061305 - paperback

I do hope this has been of some help/interest to you.

Thanks for taking the time to read.

Summary: Give you an insight into Girls Aloud