In the popular imagination, Mariah Carey is a caricature: the embodiment of the demanding diva stereotype (a persona she has often played up to with relish). Her first memoir reveals her to be not just in on the joke, but peeling back the layers to deconstruct it. Because, for all the dry humour that flashes through The Meaning of Mariah Carey, it is not the glitzy, gossipy celebrity reminiscence some might expect, but instead a largely sombre dive into her past that, at times, feels like therapy.

...affecting.

The previously tight-lipped pop star connects dots from her life to her music as she never has before, weaving her lyrics in and out of relevant scenes, and sheds light on the real-life origins of eccentricities that practically ooze out of her pores under glaring studio lights.

... the book is a page-turning guide to the public narratives and intimate moments that Carey has long hinted at in her song lyrics. It’s less a book of major reveals than one that provides depth and valuable context around the experiences of a star whose traumas make headlines and whose soundbites and facial expressions are internet gold.

...there’s plenty in the 337-page volume that will surprise even the most devoted Lambs. Most surprising of all, though, is perhaps how elusive the chanteuse remains even when she makes herself so vulnerable.

Reading Carey’s book helped me understand, on a deeper level, what drew me to her music and public persona. She approaches her memoir with the same vulnerability and openness I gravitated toward in her music..

Only the wildest gambler, then, would have put money on The Meaning of Mariah Carey being such a perfectly pitched modern pop autobiography, addressing tough, timely issues of racism, sexism, power and trauma with humanity and candour. Impressively co-written with the 'image activist' and editor Michaela Angela Davis, it isn’t quite a gritty misery memoir — Carey sparkles too hard for that — but the flawless pop star image often rubs away to show real pain.

The Meaning of Mariah Carey feels pieced together from interviews, so it’s not a work whose style you can delight in at the sentence level. But the story it tells feels genuine and timely.

[Carey's] long-awaited memoir (written with Michaela Angela Davis) promises the chronicling of her life's ups and downs 'unfiltered,' and indeed she demonstrates a painstaking commitment to specificity throughout as she recounts a complicated childhood, challenging relationships and her career.

... heartbreaking but down-to-earth and often humorous.

Many readers will look for the gossip, and in this regard, the book does not disappoint.