Defined largely by humility. This is an introspective story written by a man whose spirit is never far removed from the sadness and grief of his childhood.

Ambitious, sprawling.

Nobody has done more to expand the parameters of rock stardom, often in contentious ways.

Fascinatingly (and occasionally maddeningly) discursive memoir of the lightning-rod U2 frontman.

... begins with the U2 singer and activist nearly dying and ends with him being born. Both episodes are floridly written, a kind of poetic grandiloquence that tempers a default long-windedness throughout these 40 chapters.

Poetic yet conversational.

What is the purpose of a rock-star autobiography? You spend years having powerfully unconscious reactions to their music, then when they write their book, you get to see how they see themselves.

The youthful exuberance and specificity of the first few chapters recede as the narrative progresses. Surrender doesn’t deliver much more about the process of making music after those early glimpses, which will be frustrating for some fans. There are brief passages that go behind the scenes of various U2 albums, with some entertaining anecdotes, but little in the way of any deep musical analysis.

Bono’s writing is methodical if fragmented at times, revelatory as if he’s always thinking in song lyrics. If you truly want to get lost in his many adjectives and similes, you may want to consider the audiobook version Bono narrates himself.

The triumphs U2 has achieved throughout its nearly five-decade history are recounted with a combination of awe and disbelief. But so are the blunders which Bono, 62, owns with self-effacing humor.

Extraordinarily candid.

Surrender offers a sprawling, haphazard, open-hearted account of what he acknowledges has been a 'paradoxical life'.

The loss of his mother goes through Bono’s book as an undercurrent.

Although Bono’s memoir frequently descends into humourless grandiosity — and although it is overreliant on the use of single-word sentences to make. Platitudinous. Statements. Appear. More. Profound. Than. They. Really. Are — it displays more self-awareness and humility than you might expect from this world-saving type.

...a 500-plus page autobiography that occasionally gets bogged down in the micro details of political negotiations but is mostly an earthy, self-deprecating, often funny appraisal of the sometimes contradictory paths Bono has traveled.

Candid.

Powerful and candid.