Take That and Party (My Take - Gary Barlow)

Member Name: wendz86

Product:	My Take - Gary Barlow
Date:	01/07/09 (82 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An easy read, very interesting

Disadvantages: Might not be as enjoyable for non fans

Well I am going to see Take That on Saturday and so thought I would do a Take That related review. I have been a Take That fan since I was a little girl and when they reformed I became an even bigger fan. Gary Barlow, obviously on the back of the reunion, decided to release his autobiography. It was perfect timing really and it had given him a chance to tell his side of the story of his time in Take That and since.

As you have probably guessed from my introduction Gary Barlow was a member of the 90's boyband Take That. He also had a solo career following this, although this wasn't as successful as his time in the band.

The book is very attractive looking. It has a nice picture of him on the front, which is you are a fan like myself is obviously very nice! The name of the book 'My Take' is written on the front and Gary Barlow's name. This is also written on the side. The back has a few old pictures and says 'The boy, the band, the breakup and the back for good...'. The pictures are all in black and white and the writing is in gold so it all looks very attractive. The book I have is also a hardback, which makes it a nice book to hold and look at.

Inside the front cover is some explanation of the book and what it is about. There are also some more images, this time of promotions from his various performances. Once past this the book has the usual contents page, which indicates all the chapters. You could read the chapters seperately but I would suggest you read the whole book in order as it makes a lot more sense.

The book goes through in order from when Gary was a young boy and how his music ambition came about to the band reforming a couple of years ago. I found some of the early information really interesting as you tend to hear more about the band when they were together rather than their lives before. It also is fascinating to see how much he worked to get where he is today. After this begining section comes how the band got together. I have seen some of this in various documentaries and interviews in magazines but it is good to hear it just from Gary's point of view. It was quite fun to read about his first opinions of the other band members. After this he talks about life within the band. He tells stories about what they got up to, which shows they weren't quite the innocent boy band they were sometimes shown to be. There was also quite a bit about Robbie and why he left the band. Even though Gary wrote this in his own view, he did show that there were reasons why Robbie got annoyed, and rightly so too. I liked that Gary was not entirely against Robbie when writing about this.

After all of the beginning of his career being talked about, then came the split. I found this section really interesting. I had only really seen a bit about what happened after this point on the documentary they made a few years ago. This shows how much what happened actually affected him, much more than you would think. It was nice to see a happy ending to his autobiography though.

The story is his life story, so you can't really comment on whether it is a good story or not. I think it was really interesting, though I am not sure how interesting people who are not fans would find it. It does have plenty of twists and turns though that will keep you interested. I think Gary helped write the story well, including mainly parts of his life that were relevant to his music career. This made it all flow nicely and you could see how all the parts of the story were connected.

In amongst the chapters are also some sections of photos. These include photos of Gary as a child, pictures of a young Take That, his solo career, his family and more recent photos of the band. I really like these photos and they help to illustrate the story. They also help break up the book a bit. The photos are in sections every few chapters. Some of these are in black and white and others are in colour.

The book as a whole is written in largish text and short paragraphs, which make it an easy read. The chapters are also not too long. In total the book has 278 pages, so is not an incredibly long read. I like this about the book though as I think it makes it more enjoyable.

You can buy this book now from 1p on Amazon, which I think is a great bargain.

Overall this is a must read for any Take That fan. I also think people who aren't fans would enjoy the read as it is easy to take in and entertaining.

Summary: A must read for all Take That fans