From the cover to the last word in the book, this is just a great example of Sinead. I couldn’t help but “hear” her voice throughout this book. It was terrific.

Wow! What a gut punch. The writing style may be unorthodox, but what else can you expect from such a singular artist. Heartbreaking and uplifting in equal measure, this memoir maps the journey of an artistically soul trying to maneuver through a corrupt business and an unforgiving world. Loved it.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for granting me an e-arc in exchange for my honest review.

“Against the wall rests an old piano, The keys are yellow, like my grandad’s teeth. There are echoes in the notes, a strange sound, like the ghost bells of a sunken ship. I sneak in here often by myself because the piano summons me,”

After reading this passage and getting confirmation that she speaks to the piano and the piano does respond back, I knew this book was not for me, so therefore I did not finish.

This was not a memoir I was ready to read.

I really liked this memoir and found her to be incredibly open, honest, and blunt which is something I have always remembered her being. She got so much crap from the media in the 1990s and I was excited to hear her thoughts regarding this period of time and she doesn't disappoint either. It was interesting watching her interviews for the promotion of this book and you can tell those interviewers have no clue as to who she is, where she has come from, and where she is now... you can tell this by how many still comment on that SNL moment (i.e. picture of the pope).

Right from the get-go she explains how she has to let the child within her speak first as a way to process and heal, and as the book continues you can see the little girl grow up and you as the reader realize how much she has had to endure (i.e. her mother, my god)... that through music she was able to find her own inner strength and continues to live by her own rules. She also discusses at length about her mental health struggles and clears the air about a few misinterpreted and/or misinformed moments in her life, but she does it with a grace and style that is all her own and I respect the hell out of her for having endured what she has survived.

Highly recommend!

Rememberings is a memoir told in vignettes and some stream of consciousness narrative by Sinéad O’Connor. Released 1st June 2021 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on their Mariner imprint, it's 304 pages and is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook formats.

Biography and memoir is not the genre I read most (it would come after SF/fantasy, mystery, nonfiction, gardening, cooking, and a couple others). I made an exception for this book because I'm a huge fan of Ms. O'Connor and have loved her music and performance persona for decades. It, like the author, was a complex and sometimes difficult read for me.

Her writing style is unpolished, easy to understand, and sometimes painfully unflinching and difficult to read. She talks about her early life and appalling childhood abuse, later abuse and problems with the music industry, and the infamous SNL pope picture debacle in 1992, her mental health, and her life in general

There is maybe a bit much discussion about her discography for readers who are only interested in the biography and memoir. For fans of her music however, there is quite a lot to like here.

Four stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

Thank you to the publisher and netgalley for providing me this book in exchange for a review.

I feel guilty. I started this book a while ago and really enjoyed it. I put it down because life got in the way of my reading. I just picked it up again and remembered why I was enchanted with it.

Sinead's story is a mix of childhood abuse and stellar (albeit unwanted) success. I was struck with how Sinead's tone is always completely open and honest. I suspect she is not one to ever edit herself for anyone.

This lack of editing makes the flow of the story choppy. Sinead definitely has a knack for telling a tale. I particularly enjoyed her love for the travel agent in her youth. The stories about Dr. Phil and Prince are revealing but are not surprising.

This book bounces around quite a bit, but it's the individual tales, particularly the early ones of her upbringing that make it shine.

This is a remarkable autobiography. I’ve never read such a raw, honest and authentic memoir, one which carried me along from beginning to end with hardly a pause, so riveting did I find it. I had no particular interest in or opinion of Sinead O’Connor before this but merely took advantage of NetGalley making the book available, and was simply looking forward to finding out more about her. And find out more I certainly did. She covers her whole life up to today – from her childhood in Dublin, to her meteoric rise to music fame, her children, her mental health and breakdowns and her conversion to Islam. Always candid and outspoken, intelligent and articulate, it’s such an open and fearless memoir – that’s what appealed to me the most, her willingness to write about every aspect of her life without trying to hide or whitewash anything. A really great read.

It turns out to no one's surprise, Sinead O'Connor is a complex person. As someone of Irish descent with little knowledge of life in the country, I found her scrappy and emotional coming of age memories 1970s and 80s Ireland to be insightful, real, honest, and in some cases, painful. I also enjoyed Sinead's candor about breaking into the business with anecdotes about how bad her first contract was, the process of redoing an entire album so early into her career, and how much of her own money she put into a few records just to have complete control, but the chapters about each album left me wanting more. I wish Sinead had crafted more in-depth artist statements about songs than the self-congratulations mostly spattered throughout these chapters, which struck me as a bit immature and superfluous.

I love memoirs and it's the genre that I read the most, but I couldn't relate to a lot of Sinead's editorializations so overall this book missed the mark for me. Thank you Net Galley for the ARC!

Categories: Celebrity tell-some / Apparently asexual / Behind the lyrics, further than the fame
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I was pleasantly surprised by how well written this book was - at least for the majority of it. I guess it makes sense, given Sinéad O'Connor's lyric-writing ability, that she can weave words together with some degree of aptitude. I really enjoyed learning about her childhood (if 'enjoyed' is the right word), and her voice was endearing. It felt like having a cup of tea and a natter with a friend - the kind of friend where they do all the talking and you nod and make polite murmurings every now and then, but a friend nonetheless.
Of course, there's always the knowledge that you have to take any of these sorts of memoirs with a pinch of salt. Memory is a funny thing, and you can't always take what's written down at face-value. Some parts did feel a bit sensationalist, but much like that talkative friend, you just take it in stride and enjoy the tales for what their worth.
Up until about 75% through, I thought I would be giving this 4 stars, however at one point Sinéad says that she's asexual, which I thought was interesting. I couldn't tell if this a sarcastic remark or a joke, but it felt like it was said with sincerity, and so I believed her. Several pages later, she says how sexually attracted she was to someone, and then a few pages after that, how much she would have liked to bed another individual. This does not ring true for someone who says they're asexual, and this kind of rhetoric is damaging. Asexuality isn't a choice or a lifestyle, it's a part of who someone is. Sinéad claiming to be asexual and then providing contradictory evidence leads to misinformed readers around a subject that is already highly misunderstood.
I know this might seem like something small, but as a queer person it is this kind of erroneous publicisation that leads to further segregation of minority groups.
I still found this memoir to be a worthy way to spend my time, and Sinéad's writing style was certainly easy to read. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with this review copy.

Utterly fascinating! Reading Sinead O’Connor’s memories as though she is reciting each one, sitting beside you, offers such a personal experience. I admire Sinead’s honesty; she didn’t look away when examining her own history and this book is better for it.

My thanks to NetGalley and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for and advanced copy of this chronicle.

Can a book be a biography if the subject can not remember? Can a memoir be considered true if your narrator in their own words is unreliable? Yes and Yes. Or maybe sure and why not. Maybe this question will arise upon completing Rememberings by the singer Sinéad O'Connor or maybe the work be treated as another form of creation by a very talented artist. Let the buyer beware and the reader make their choice.

Ms. O'Connor's book covers er horrible childhood, her music career, papal wars and gradually an acceptance of who and what Ms. O'Connor is, at least right now. Yes there are many things she doesn't remember, somethings that she is better off not. However she shares all that she knows, loves and cares too.

The book has a few different styles and the voice is different for various eras and times in her life, be it career or family, with a little wandering here and there. The writing is compelling and carries the reader along, with enough behind the scenes and musical tidbits to keep the music fan interested, and sometimes disgusted. The book does make one question a life in the arts, but maybe it was the art that helped our writer survive. The question does seem like a toss up.

One of the more challenging and intriguing music biographies I have read in quite awhile.

This is a very strange book. It is written in kind of chronological order, but not strictly. This first half focusses on Sinead O'Conner's childhood, in quite some details, but is still pretty vague. Then there is a part where she talks about each of her albums, which probably would be quite interesting to true fans. Then she explains that she doesn't remember anything, but wrote up to 1992 before she had the traumatic incident that caused her to lose her memory.
The story is disjointed, more a series of anecdotes than a memoir. A remarkable number of those stories involve Sinead running around and screaming. She is an extremely unreliable narrator, and there are just huge gaps in the story. So it's quite unsatisfying, but it did make me go back and relisten to her music. This book,, told in her own words, makes he seem at best scattered and at worst a complete nut-job. Her music is amazing though.

Rememberings by Sinéad O’Connor is a collection of stories Sinéad remembers from throughout her life. The stories range from childhood with her parents, to life today as a single mother of 4children, & everything in between. This was a uniquely written memoir. Sinéad is an eclectic woman. She seems to be very intuitive. Yet, there appears to be a psychological disconnect, which comes through in her style of writing.
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Mental illness is a reoccurring theme throughout the book. Sinéad suffers from mental illness. Sadly, she also experienced a lot of trauma and abuse at the hands of her mother, who also suffered from mental illness.
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The stories within this book were both peaks & valleys. Some stories are good, others not so much. She does address the SNL Pope situation. She also writes about being on Dr. Phil. But, my favorite is a story of Muhammad Ali, who is also her son’s namesake.
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My least favorite is a story about Prince. She basically describes him as a demonic predator that tried to physically harm her. But she got away from him because sunlight began to rise, causing him to drive away so he wouldn’t be seen by others. It was a creepy story that I found disturbing & disrespectful. Sinéad also makes it perfectly clear that Prince had very little to do with her cover of his song 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘴 2 𝘜.
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There is one theory in the book I happen to agree with. When talking about writing songs, she states that writers should be careful of the songs they write because songs come true. This made me think of Prince with his song Let’s Go Crazy which contains the lyrics “are we gonna let the elevator bring us down”. And as we all know, Prince came to his demise in an elevator😢. (FYI “the elevator” in this song means the devil).
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Overall, Rememberings wasn’t impactful enough for me to give it more than 3 stars. Sinéad’s writing style was a little too choppy for me. I just couldn’t connect with the narrative. Also, the eARC didn’t contain the photos that will be placed throughout the finished copy. This created a void in the review version of the book.

I feel like I need to preface this review by saying I've a huge amount of respect for Sinead and the work she did to highlight the atrocities of the Irish church. My review is completely based on the book and how it reads.

First of all the book is being marketed as a tell-all memoir in which Sinead details her story through the years, unfortunately it doesn't read that way. To me it felt about 20% memoir and 80% discography. There are parts where she talks about her childhood abuse and a quick chapter about her children at the end however the rest feels like tid bits of sentences thrown into paragraph upon paragraph about her songs.
While it was an interesting read overall I can't help feeling the book has more to do with her upcoming album which is due to be released rather than her telling her own true story.

TW for child abuse, addiction, mental illness and suicide.

An incredibly raw, painful, angry, beautiful and honest memoir. I loved her writing style which is changeable for the different eras, and as she explains, she wrote different parts at different times. I much preferred this to some of the polished (possibly ghost written) memoirs that are around as I could really imagine her telling these stories to a friend. Yes there are bits missing and it's somewhat disjointed at times but I felt this style reflected her true self.

The childhood abuse she had suffered is horrendous. Some of the music industry stories are shocking (the Prince chapter!) and the experiences of being an outspoken woman in the music industry. Some bits I had to read out loud laughing such as the divas not allowed to poo on a tour bus, skinheads in phonebox and turning up to a protest against herself.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher and author for a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Sinead O’Connor is a true artist. She is uncompromising, fearless and towers above most living singers at this moment in time. I love her music. I adore her voice. This autobiography bares all. Sinead stands up for herself. She owns up to everything she has done as an artist and as a human being. More than almost any other singer/songwriter/performer alive today, Sinead creates honest art from her heart and from her soul. She is a lioness. God bless her for never letting the bastards get her down.

I caught the music video for Sinéad O’Connor’s cover of Prince’s Nothing Compares 2 U on TV as a young child, and I never forgot it: That iconic close-up of a beautiful woman with a shaved head and powerful voice, intensely staring at the viewer with two solitary tears of longing rolling down her cheeks. Over twenty years later, I decided that this memoir presented the perfect opportunity to finally dig deeper into her discography, and learn more about an intriguing artist who, time and time again, has been at best misunderstood, and at worst vilified by the media because of her mental health issues, and controversial actions to call out hypocrisy.

I knew virtually nothing about Sinéad’s life and music going in, yet Rememberings was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, based entirely on what the mostly unkindly media has taught me about her over the years: Authentic, rambling, and unusual. Which aren’t necessarily bad things—but coupled with her mix of self-confidence and self-deprecation, the result is an incredibly conversational, somewhat repetitive, and very scattered memoir. She writes about her past life in the present tense, which was a peculiar choice, and poetic passages alternate with ones where she uses words such as “ain’t”, “dunno”, and fourteen instances of the slang word “square” throughout the book, which sounds nothing short of archaic, but endearing in an odd sort of way. To be fair, she does warn that she’s written it as if she were having a conversation with the reader right up front—and that due to her mental health issues, a good chunk of her life won’t be covered, because she can’t (or doesn’t want to?) remember (or share).

From a narrative standpoint, the beginning is the strongest and most linear: She covers her childhood, upbringing, emotionally and physically abusive mother, and how she came to music, more or less up to the immediate aftermath of her tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL. What follows does the book title justice: It becomes more of a collection of scattered anecdotes, in turn funny, insightful, mystical, or just plain eccentric. There’s a chapter about an evening at Prince’s house that seems too bizarre to really be true, she gives context to each album in her back-catalogue, reflecting back to those times in her life, and she touches on her mental breakdown from a few years back, as well as the horrendous Dr. Phil interview—not in much depth, but offering her perspective with candor. She writes from a place of honesty and has remained true to herself despite many changes throughout the years, but even so, she’s a bundle of contradictions: for instance, she refers to herself as asexual, but she talks about being sexually attracted to all sorts of people throughout the book.

Along with music, motherhood and spirituality are the most important aspects of her life. Her ongoing, life-long spiritual quest (she may have waged war against the Catholic Church, but she’s an ordained priest in a breakaway sect, deeply interested in Rastafarianism, and has most recently converted to Islam…) is something I cannot relate to at all, which is probably why I didn’t enjoy the memoir quite enough to say “I liked it”. The book seems almost to be written for her own benefit rather than for a wider audience—it’s full of what are essentially short tributes to her collaborators, lovers, husbands, children, and their fathers, and it reads like an attempt to put misunderstandings aside.

Someone who is already a fan of her work will probably get something out of this; anyone who dislikes her won’t be swayed; and someone interested and open-minded, but with a more or less blank slate, like me, will likely fall somewhere in the middle. Rememberings probably won’t be remembered, but I am writing this as a newly converted (albeit casual) fan of her musical oeuvre, and I appreciate it for opening that door for me. I think she's an intense, interesting, and beautiful soul, but she conveys it best in her music.

This is a roller coaster of a read. It’s emotional, sometimes funny, angry, confused, strong but also vulnerable, the full range of her personality that comes across in her singing. I bought her first album when it came out and Troy is still one of my favourite songs. I followed her career and knew bits and pieces about her life so I was interested to read this. It doesn’t shy away from the controversies or her health issues.

I knew very little about Sinead O’Connor and this book really taught me so much about. There is so much to admire. The writing was great, as expected from an artist. Now I’m on a Sinead O’Connor binge so if you notice a spike in Spotify streams, you’re welcome.

I caught the music video for Sinéad O’Connor’s cover of Prince’s 'Nothing Compares 2 U' on TV as a young child, and I never forgot it: That iconic close-up of a beautiful woman with a shaved head and powerful voice, intensely staring at the viewer with two solitary tears of longing rolling down her cheeks. Over twenty years later, I decided that this memoir presented the perfect opportunity to finally dig deeper into her discography, and learn more about an intriguing artist who, time and time again, has been at best misunderstood, and at worst vilified by the media because of her mental health issues, and controversial actions to call out hypocrisy.

I knew virtually nothing about Sinéad’s life and music going in, yet REMEMBERINGS was pretty much exactly what I expected it to be, based entirely on what the mostly unkindly media has taught me about her over the years: Authentic, rambling, and unusual. Which aren’t necessarily bad things—but coupled with her mix of self-confidence and self-deprecation, the result is an incredibly conversational, somewhat repetitive, and very scattered memoir. She writes about her past life in the present tense, which was a peculiar choice, and poetic passages alternate with ones where she uses words such as “ain’t”, “dunno”, and fourteen instances of the slang word “square” throughout the book, which sounds nothing short of archaic, but endearing in an odd sort of way. To be fair, she does warn that she’s written it as if she were having a conversation with the reader right up front—and that due to her mental health issues, a good chunk of her life won’t be covered, because she can’t (or doesn’t want to?) remember (or share).

From a narrative standpoint, the beginning is the strongest and most linear: She covers her childhood, upbringing, emotionally and physically abusive mother, and how she came to music, more or less up to the immediate aftermath of her tearing up a picture of Pope John Paul II on SNL. What follows does the book title justice: It becomes more of a collection of scattered anecdotes, in turn funny, insightful, mystical, or just plain eccentric. There’s a chapter about an evening at Prince’s house that seems too bizarre to really be true, she gives context to each album in her back-catalogue, reflecting back to those times in her life, and she touches on her mental breakdown from a few years back, as well as the horrendous Dr. Phil interview—not in much depth, but offering her perspective with candor. She writes from a place of honesty and has remained true to herself despite many changes throughout the years, but even so, she’s a bundle of contradictions: for instance, she refers to herself as asexual, but she talks about being sexually attracted to all sorts of people throughout the book.

Along with music, motherhood and spirituality are the most important aspects of her life. Her ongoing, life-long spiritual quest (she may have waged war against the Catholic Church, but she’s an ordained priest in a breakaway sect, and has most recently converted to Islam…) is something I cannot relate to at all (or even muster up much understanding for, to be frank), which is probably why I didn’t enjoy the memoir quite enough to say “I liked it”. The book seems almost to be written more for her own benefit than for an audience—it’s full of what are essentially short tributes to her collaborators, lovers, husbands, children, and their fathers, and it reads like an attempt to put misunderstandings aside.

Someone who is already a fan of her work will probably get something out of this; anyone who dislikes her won’t be swayed; and someone interested and open-minded, but with a more or less blank slate, like me, will likely fall somewhere in the middle. REMEMBERINGS probably won’t be remembered, but I am writing this as a newly converted (albeit casual) fan of her musical oeuvre, and I appreciate it for opening that door for me.