Book review -- Clay Aiken: Learning to Sing

I had two choices: save the book for after my exams (in April) or finish reading it by this week's end; I know that when school kicks in again on Monday (after the lull of having completed my mid-terms), I will probably have more tasks on my hand than time to do them.

It didn't turn out to be much of a choice, really. I couldn't put it down, and here I am, 43 hours ahead of schedule.

Typically when I read a book, I will pick out little nuggets, and mentally make a note to quote them. Some books are a little more clever, and I have to use flags to mark out the many pages, and then choose the best one to post.

With Learning to Sing, I gave up trying to do that; within the first chapter, I'd already wanted to post every other sentence.

Part of me wants to say that everyone has to read this book!, another part of me feels that -- as hard as it is to believe -- not everyone will appreciate it. Those of us who have been gauche social misfits at one time or another (or still are, really) will laugh and cry along with it, and it will make our struggle a little less painful and embarrassing. Those of you who have always fit in -- who have always been confident, popular, successful -- probably aren't going to find much in common. (Which is weird since this is, after all, the autobiography of Clay, who is, by most standards, confident, popular, and very successful.)

But I guess that's really the thing: childhood (or adolescence) isn't ironed out by virtue of having attained success. No amount of fame, fortune (or sex, for that matter) is going to make everything go away. You learn to grow up, even when you fail.

This is a book that I will share with my family, that I will want to pass down to my children, that I see myself re-reading many times in the near and not-so-near future; already I have a mental list of friends who would love the book, and those who wouldn't.

This is a book that even someone who's never heard the words "Clay Aiken" would fall in love with.