There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me by Brooke Shields

There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me Reviews

• 
  Chrissy

  With her beauty and her roles in controversial films, Brooke Shields has become legendary, but there's a darkness behind it all in the relationship she had with her controlling, alcoholic mother. There Was a Little Girl, covers the life of Teri Shields, entwined with Brooke's own extraordinary life.
  On a personal note, I went into this book thinking I'd have nothing in common at all with Brooke Shields. But, the book opens with her explaining how, before her mother's death, she felt she couldn't live without, or imagine life going on, without her. Later, she writes about feeling helpless while watching her mother's health decline and sadness knowing her daughters will never get to meet their grandfather, the father she had already lost. These feelings, surrounding the loss of both parents, I could unfortunately relate to, which added a real sense of sincerity to her writing. This was an interesting, at times touching, look at the lives of Brooke and Teri Shields.
• 
  Miranda Reads

  Brooke Shields: Purely Iconic

  

  Everyone saw the flawless photographs. Everyone watched her coming-of-age movies. Everyone followed the very public fallout with her mother.
  
  But not everyone knows the true her. When Terri Shields (Brooke's mother) dies, Brook sends in an obituary. Immediately, the newspaper calls her asking to conduct an interview. Brooke declines and the next morning, she's greeted with a front-page expose on her mother's life.
  
  As Brooke read the article, she notices how wrong and skewed it was - desperately painting her mother in the most negative light possible for the readers to oggle at. Despite her unimaginable grief, she begins to write.
  
  This is Brooke's story but also her mother's. Her mother had a wild, bold and beautiful life but it was tinged with anxiety and addiction. She doesn't want her mother to be remembered for one nor the other - only to include both sides of the story of that truly remarkable woman.
  
  From a young age, Brooke Shields was thrust into the limelight. Her mother had big plans and as long as Brooke was game for it, they were going to take on the world together.
  
  With her Mother-Manager, Brooke quickly became an icon. She starred as a child-prostitute in Pretty Baby and as a topless hooligan in Blue Lagoon. But for many, both movies showcased the darker side of Hollywood and cast real doubt upon Brooke's childhood. The media missed the true trouble and sorrow:

  With regard to my mother, it felt like it was never enough. Nothing I said or did seemed correct or could make her stop getting drunk or feel deeper happiness. I felt helpless. Why wasn’t I enough to help her stop drinking?

  The voice of this novel is exceptional and poignant. This isn't a name-dropping celebrity tell-all, but something so much more. It's the story of a star and her manager. A child and an addict.
  
  A daughter and her mother and their extraordinary life together.
  
  
  Audiobook Comments
  Absolutely marvelous to listen to. Read by the author and she does her story justice.
  
  The 2018 PopSugar Reading Challenge - your favorite prompt from the 2015, 2016 or 2017 PopSugar Reading Challenges:
  
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• 
  Nancy

  I am not sure how others will interpret this book, but to me, it came across as a rough draft written by a person that was just spewing and needed to have an editor with a firm hand and a very red correction pen. Paragraphs rambled and repeated themselves, incorrect tense of words and in some cases, completely wrong words, and large sections read more like ideas than well thought out paragraphs. You would think that Dutton or Penguin would kindly pat Brooke’s hand and say, “thank you, we will take it from here”, but no, they let this drivel go on for four hundred monotonous pages.
  
  Yes Brooke, we get it, your mother had a drinking problem and you did not separate from her the way most offspring do and until her death, you did not know where she ended and you began. This sad fact did not need to be repeated in every chapter. It did not endear you to me; it just made me sad for a daughter that was desperately trying to redeem her mother in the eyes of the public.
  
  I am not saying that there was not love between mother and daughter; I believe that they loved each other so much that there was little room for anyone else. Unfortunately for Brooke, from a very young age, she decided to ignore her mother’s compulsive lies and chose for most of her life to believe what she needed to believe. Laughing off the stories as little white lies and making excuses became Brooke’s full time job.
  
  By the end of the book, I was sad for Brooke. Except for the alcoholism, I was beginning to see Brooke as no different from her mother. The stories were exaggerated, name-calling of ex-boyfriends, twisting situations to where she always came out on top. Dramatic outburst and hyperbolic language seemed to be the same go to for both mother and daughter.
  
  If you can make it to the end, there is a very loving tribute and that is where the book should have ended. But of course not, the hand of reason did not eliminate the section telling of Brooke’s purchasing yet another home and decorating it, having a breakdown of sorts and rushing out to buying new furnishing that were more along the likes of her husband and herself. Really, this should have been used as the beginning of another book. One where she is finally building her own life.
  
  Brooke herself said that the writing of this book was not cathartic for her and I would have to say that it was not beneficial to me either. This is one of those books that is best picked up from a bargain bin or a library rummage sale.
  
• 
  Wendy'sThoughts

  3 For This Little Girl Stars
  * * * Limited Time, $1.99!
  I was one of those people who would see the commercials and love the beauty of Brooke Shields. At a time in our culture, for me, she had moments that connected and an image that physically seemed flawless. I saw the movie Pretty Baby... loving the film with the way it was artfully presented. The Calvin ads with her and Andie McDowell were the best... smart, beautiful yet had personality... a marketing dream.
  
  As Brooke grew up, she went through phases and many of the decisions for projects made no sense, in my mind's eye. There were many stories about her mother... her father and other issues. What I remembered was her going to Princeton and not falling into the disastrous pit of child star tragedies.....and it was a credit to her as we all knew her mother had serious drinking issues.
  
  Brook tells us in the very beginning of this book how hurt and then angry she was at the way a journalist reported the obit for her mother. She had submitted exactly what she wanted to be said and included the $1500 required. This person did not do as requested and started the notice with a derogatory description and proceeded from there... This experience was the beginning of why this book was written.
  
  As I read this book, I was mostly saddened by the way Brooke would work so hard to present her mom in a positive light, yet at the same time try to be truthful about her pain and difficulty living with an alcoholic. Children love their parents. Even children who are abused verbally, neglectfully, or physically. All parents have moments which can bring joy to their children... and then if under the influence of whatever substance, destroy the moments in a heartbeat.
  
  This book was Brooke's attempt in many ways to present Teri Shields as the woman Brooke saw through the child's eyes...strong, fun, invincible and obsessively loving to her... yet there was the other Teri which appeared regularly... and it was not a pretty picture. We were given the back story of "why" Teri may have been the way she was...yet it was very clear... Teri refused to grow beyond a certain point... causing her to never see what Brooke really needed as her daughter.
  
  While reading this book, the underlining question which kept running through my mind was why didn't her father step up and demand a larger role in this girl's life. Yes, he assisted with her schooling. Yes, she would stay with him and his new wife, etc. through the years... but with all that was happening... it was if Brooke was out there making decisions and cleaning up messes all the time with no real adult intervention. So.... in my mind... I have issues with all the adults in her life.
  
  This book does supply a lot of the guilty pleasures bios of famous are known for... inside stories of movie sets; first love shared; and famous tales ...yet all of it was coated with this dual telling it seemed...a justification of how she felt; what she did and why...The style of writing was meant to conversational...it reminded me of girlfriends talking; first bright and chipper... then more loaded with pain... and then finally those rare moments when everything is stripped away and you question the deeper truths of your being...
  
  Brooke has lived a life during many different decades of acceptance. She has remained a strong person... and in her own way handled first what was dealt her and then what decisions she made with what she learned. She is happily married with two children and a respectable career. Although this book was supposed to clear her mother's reputation and did not for me...it did give an inside look at what incredible circumstances molded Brooke and what she took from them.
  
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• 
  Howard

  4 Stars for There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me (audiobook) by Brooke Shields read by the author.
  
  This was kind two biographies in one. The author tells the story of her relationship with her mother. For me, some of the details were surprising and some weren’t. I remember when I was young seeing Brooke Shields on TV commercials and in the movies. Her life seemed so glamorous. Apparently it was a lot more complicated than that.
• 
  Roberta

  Basically there is only one sentence in this book: Brooke Shields' mother was an abusive alcoholic.
  
  Turn the page and repeat that sentence 416 times.
  
  I should stop reading biographies (unless it's about Adolf Hitler) because I always like people less after reading them.
  
  There were a few interesting sentences that I had to read out loud to the nearest innocent victim. At one point Brooke Shields absolutely insists that no one, not the writers, the producers, her mother or anyone else ever suspected that nothing getting between her and her Calvin Klein jeans was a double entendre. It was all in the dirty filthy minds of the viewing audience.
  
  Brooke also states that she was an absolutely normal teenager (OK ...) but one page later says that, when she was about 13, Studio 54 was one of her favorite hangouts because they had such a good VIP area (which I'm sure you are all familiar with, since we all hung out there when we were teenagers, no?)
  
  Brooke later explains that she chose to attend Princeton because the library had more realistic gargoyles than Vassar and more ivy on the buildings. What, pray tell, is a "realistic gargoyle?"
  
  Why didn't I give it one star? I am trying to save one-star reviews for kindling books.
• 
  Shelley

  Poorly written and edited, repetitive, and at times so vague as to be confusing. I think Shields didn't want to reveal too much about certain aspects of her life, which I can understand, but then either don't write a book or be a better writer so you can make it work anyway.
  
  And yet, I read the whole thing. Skimmed in places, but not much. There was just enough insider info to keep me going. However, she never full-on addressed the reason I picked up the book -- was she angry about the amount and type of jobs her mother signed the young Shields up for as a child? She does seem OK and even pleased with some controversial pieces of her career, like "Pretty Baby" (mostly because it had an "important" director), but then she doesn't even mention posing for nude photos for the Playboy publication "Sugar and Spice" at age 10. In recent years she demanded a museum remove a nude photo taken of her during that photo shoot, so it sounds like she wasn't thrilled with being a nude model at 10, yet she never even mentions this in the book. I think she just didn't want to face up to and address many big issues, but if you're not going to touch on the hottest topics people talked about regarding your mother and her guidance of your career, why write a book to tell the "real story?"
  
  She also often simply stated that something or another happened without explaining how that event affected her life or relationships. For instance, she talks about Andre Agassi getting so angry over watching her shoot a scene for "Friends" (where she licked Joey's fingers) that he drove back to Vegas and smashed every trophy he ever won. She doesn't shed light on how this made her feel, if it worried her, or if it hurt the relationship (though she later married him). She just mentions that she had the trophies replaced and that her spot on "Friends" was a success. This is how she handles all touchy topics, be it her relationship with her mother or losing her long-guarded virginity to college boyfriend Dean Cain -- she just gives a glossy surface mention of the topic at hand, adding very little depth or reflection. At times she dances around a topic so carefully that she doesn't even make sense.
  
  I could go on about lots of irritating aspects of this book, and in a way, maybe that's an endorsement. I didn't think it was great, but if I sat down with someone else who'd read it, we could go on and on about various parts we found annoying or lacking and the rare bit that was truly interesting. That is, it would spark a lot of discussion. So there's that.
  
  Read my book reviews and more at
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• 
  Alexa

  Was watching a YouTube video on Pretty Baby and I thought "I wonder if Brooke Shields has done a memoir" and here we are! This one has an interesting and incredibly specific lens: Brooke and her mom. A view into an intense, co-dependent mother-daughter relationship with shades of "momager," alcoholic mom, and possible n-parent. A heartfelt and honest reconciliation that resonated for me many times, especially Brooke's harrowing descriptions of watching her mother die. That hit me.
  
  You do get a pretty thorough recounting of Brooke's rise to fame and career--the best nuggets are there, especially about her early career with Pretty Baby and Blue Lagoon. There are some fun anecdotes, and some scintillating, sharp comments about a few people (an ex or two, most notably), but for the most part, it's a celebrity memoir that skims a lot of the juicy stuff because that's not the focus of the story--this one is truly about the relationship, and person, at it's center. Most surprising and compelling in terms of the Hollywood "tell-all" part is the truth behind Brooke's role and experiences in the notoriously scandalous films--the whole memoir sparked by an obituary printed by the NYT that implied Brooke's mom was a child-pimping stage mom. It's refreshing and reassuring to hear Brooke wasn't overly exploited, even if she concedes the movies she made would NEVER fly today, even with protections in place (she used body doubles).
  
  So that is to say: in terms of being a Hollywood memoir, it's not especially deep (ie: it really skims over the potentially good stuff, re: revealing secrets), but as a memoir that explores the complex, confusing, intense relationship with a dysfunctional parent? It was really lovely. While I didn't have a dysfunctional relationship with my mother (who fortunately did not suffer from any addictions nor personality disorders), I DID have an incredibly emotionally and intellectually intense one with her, also being the only child of a single mother, like Brooke. And now that I have also lost my mother, I found so much in Brooke's memoir that I related to. Complex, complicated feelings about the most important relationship in your life, with a person who is now gone.
  
  Recommended if anyone is interested in that sort of thing, though with a content warning mentioned above: I was just about able to get through the ending which vividly (and beautifully, in a haunting sense) describes what it was like to watch her mother deteriorate from Alzheimer's and pass away in front of her. I was able to relate to a lot of is directly having had a similar experience when my mom passed away from cancer; Brooke's descriptions and trauma felt so intense and real to me. I cried a bit. This may not be suitable for any reader who is close to a similar experience with death/losing a parent who aren't able to/interested in reading such description.
• 
  Terrie Robinson

  "There Was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me" by Brooke Shields was a DNF for me.
  
  It wasn't awful, but only okay. It told her story as the child of her verbally abusive alcoholic mother, Teri. How she always looked after Teri to ensure she was okay when she was drank. Teri always drank. Brooke was always worried. So it went on like this over and over again through the book.
  
  There was one intervention Brooke spoke about with her mom. She mentioned how her mom was so smart she outwitted everyone in the treatment facility, even the staff professionals. When Teri came home after three months in treatment, she was fine. Then they flew to Fiji to film the movie Blue Lagoon. Before long Teri was drinking again. But this time Brooke didn't worry so much because they were stuck on an island and what could happen when you're on an island!? Really?!
  
  When she talked about going to Studio 54 and never seeing any drugs, I heard denial from Brooke for the last time. In a club that sold alcohol, where there were copious amounts of drugs available, with her alcoholic mother chaperoning was acceptable but only until 11:30 PM because, after all, it was a school night. This behavior is definitely inappropriate for a mother of a minor to allow. But wait, her mother brought her there! Oh my goodness!
  
  She states she is just a normal child/teenager doing normal child/teenage things. These behaviors are not normal. Parents who allow children to behave this way are not normal. Brooke reading her written words makes all this more tragic to me. Her voice seems childlike while making excuses for the bad behaviors that were allowed by both her and her mother. It can become easier to excuse, justify and accept rather than to stare it down, face the truth and come to terms with what you see.
  
  After 5 hours of listening I stopped. I couldn't listen any more especially with more than 7 hours remaining to finish the book. Instead, I chose to send it back to the Library via my Libby App and listen to a different book.
  
• 
  Linda

  Pretty impressed with Brooke's honesty about about growing up with an alcoholic mother, living in the spotlight, and then watching her beloved mom succumb to dementia. Powerful and heartbreaking.
• 
  Licha

  I was fascinated by Brooke Shields when I was a young child. The Blue Lagoon was one of my favorite movies growing up. There was always a certain curiosity about Brooke as a person. The book strikes me more as a biography rather than a memoir but it satisfied my curiosity about Brooke’s childhood and how she got started in showbiz. The book was supposed to deal with the relationship between Brooke and her mother but I felt like her mother did not come across as more than a woman who was very involved in her child’s life, almost to the point where they were one person, and also as a daily alcoholic, which is so sad to me that Brooke was not able to bring her mother alive in the pages of this book. There had to be more to her mother than just the daily alcoholic binges. I started to get a sense of extreme resentment from Brooke towards her mother and halfway through it began to wear me down.
  
  By the end of the book, as her mother is dying, Brooke says, ”And even if Mom had wanted to be kept alive at all costs forever, I didn’t want that. I was sure I couldn’t handle that.” Statements like this bother me, as much as I try to understand it from someone else’s point of view. The care of older parents is a subject dear to my heart and it’s hard for me to feel sympathetic when an adult child can refer to their parent in such a manner.
  
  I won this book in a Goodreads first-reads giveaway. This does not have any bearing on my rating or review of this book. I did enjoy reading this book and would recommend it to anyone interested in reading about Brooke Shileds
  
• 
  T.K.

  Brooke wrote this book out of indignation for her mother's harsh critics. She was determined to prove that Teri Shields was not the typical stage mother, but the truth was far worse: she was an abusive alcoholic that made her daughter her meal ticket. It is sad to read Brooke's excuses for her mother, her praise, her glossing over the ugliness; it just makes the abuse and neglect she endured seem far worse. And though Brooke acknowledges she would never allow her daughters to make a film like Pretty Baby or even the provocative Calvin Klein ads, she won't condemn or even criticize her mother for it. Her inability to fully come to terms with her mother's abuse is depressing, and near the end of the book, I had to force myself to finish it. If you're a fan, the book is a fairly satisfying autobiography and worth the read, but be aware that angry Brooke is inordinately fond of the F word and has sprinkled it liberally throughout.
• 
  Dianne

  Not sure exactly why I picked this up, since celebrity autobiographies are not my sweet spot. It's basically 400 pages of assorted neuroses, alcoholism and serious co-dependence issues. It's a sad story, but not terribly profound or revealing. You probably know quite a bit of this story already. The writing is just OK, but I don't think you read something like this for the writing.
  
  If you are not a big Brooke Shields fan, you might want to pass on this one. Good, but not great.
  
  
  
  
  
  
• 
  Elaine

  Being a huge fan of Brooke Shields growing up I was interested to read this account of her life. Especially to find out more about her relationship with her Mum. Whilst an interesting read, quite emotional in parts and entertaining, I found that the editing let it down and this distracted me quite a bit from fully enjoying the story. As an only child however I was able to relate to the quite unique, not always healthy bond between Brooke and her mother and was able to fully appreciate the role reversal...the child having to be the parent and the stolen childhood. One thing that came through was that as parents none of us are perfect. I would not necessarily rave about this book nor recommend it. You definitely need to be a fan to endure and enjoy it. Just scraped in at 3 stars.
• 
  Colette

  Bad editing but I was riveted...sooo relatable. Last 20% or so cried buckets...very sad.
• 
  Yvonne Flanagan-purdy

  Loved this book! It was very well written and interesting to hear about Brooke Shield's life. I am about her same age and it was refreshing to read that even celebrities lives are very similar to ours in emotion, things that have happened to them over the years, and just human daily life of a child growing up in her era. It is especially interesting to read about the Mother & Daughter relationship; the emotions felt as a child and as a Mother myself, I saw so many parallels to my relationship with my Daughter and my Mother (both roles).
  
  
• 
  Darren

  Because she's Brooke Shields! This was entertaining...until it wasn't. The story of her childhood was great, including all the details about living with an alcoholic, co-dependent mother. But when the career details fall away in the latter sections of this memoir, things become tedious...at least for this age-contemporary fan who really just wanted more behind-the-scenes storytelling about films, television and stage. (I listened to the unabridged audiobook, narrated by Brooke Shields herself.)
• 
  Jeanne

  It started out interesting then turned to drivel. The ramblings of an adult child of an alcoholic mother.
• 
  Julie

  There was a Little Girl: The Real Story of My Mother and Me by Brooke Shields is a 2014 Dutton publication.
  
  
  This may seem like a strange ‘Mother’s Day’ read, and I really didn’t intend to deliberately choose a book like this to read for the holiday, it just worked out that way.
  
  I grew up along with Brooke Shields in some ways. Those Calvin ads during the eighties is what I remember most, but I was not ignorant about the controversy surrounding the role that made her famous.
  
  I won’t go into the rights and wrongs of how her mother handled Brooke’s career. I will say that when I finally caught “Pretty Baby” on a premium cable channel, I was not overly impressed. Now that I have raised children of my own, I can’t imagine putting my eleven -year old daughter in such a film, art or not, based on a true story or not.
  I doubt I’m the only one with that point of view and that film solidified Teri Shields’ reputation as the ultimate stage mother.
  When Teri died, Brooke was aghast when the obituary she had written for the newspaper was embellished upon and portrayed her mother in a most unflattering light. The idea was formed then to tell the true story of the mother/daughter dynamic between Brooke and her mother.
  
  
  Mainly, the book deals with Brooke’s life as a child, living with a raging alcoholic and having to be the adult, even staging an intervention for her mother at a tender age.
  Living with an alcoholic is a horrible existence, and for a child coping with that, basically on her own, is a brand of abuse, even if it was not physical abuse.
  
  However, once we got to a certain stage in the book, it became pretty much a repetition of day to day life with an alcoholic parent.
  
  The book seemed hastily thrown together, and once Brooke entered her college days, I began to rapidly lose interest.
  
  I have admired Brooke for keeping her act together, when so many others who were famous during her heyday still battle drug and alcohol addictions. Her story is sad in many ways, and despite her attempts to soften the hard edges surrounding the relationship with her mother, telling the story in a detached and unemotional way, my opinion of Teri Shields remains unchanged.
  
  Overall, this book is a take or leave it for me.
  
  3 stars
  
  
  
  
• 
  Michael

  I remember watching an interview with the author who wrote this book. I remember how she was promoting the book, but I did not have a clue who the actress was. However this book really opened my eyes about who she was and the troublesome childhood that she endured. The things she endured as a child was heartbreaking, but despite the trials she went through, I knew that she loved her mother. It seemed like this book cleared up the misconceptions about her mother, Teri if anything. According to the press, she was an alocholic mother who should be ashamed of herself for allowing her daughter to play a prostitute on a movie. Yet Brooke defended her actions, affirming that times were different back then and her mother was misunderstood.
  
  If there is one thing I do know about this book, I read Endless love by Scott Spencer. It was one of the best romantic books I read in awhile. Although I had no idea that Brooke played the lead character in the film adaption ( I can't remember if I watched the movie or not), but the movie soared in the box office. Back to the book, it was very good and touching, it was very sad for the majority.
  
  I also love the pictures that accompanied the book, it made the book come more alive. Brooke childhood was tragic to some people but I feel that she did a terrific job paying tribute to her mother and Father. I am curious to see what type of life her mother lived beyond this book, so I would research things.
  
  Lastly, this book was outstanding and it really shined light about things I did not know about Brooke and her childhood .
• 
  Melanie Johnson

  Being a woman of a "certain age", I grew up with Brooke Shields and always loved her. I knew of her alcoholic "momager" through all of the gossip mags of the time. Brooke recounts so much of her childhood and how the co-dependency shaped her career and life. It's hard not to feel sorry for the little girl who felt that she had to take care of her mother. However, Brooke does a good job of painting both sides, the pain and the pride that her mom felt as she watched Brooke succeed.
• 
  Mandy

  There were parts of this book that were really interesting. Dean Cain, Andre Agassi, Brooke's life as a wife/mother. Other parts though seemed to drag on and something about this book just didn't flow right, I agree with other reviews that it seemed choppy at times. This isn't my usual genre, I don't read memoirs but I've always liked Brooke Shields and thought this would be an interesting book to read and I am glad that I read it.
• 
  Lise

  Closer to a 4.. Just needed some editing .. Brooke shows amazing compassion and forgiveness towards her mother. Just about every event or milestone in Brooke's life is marred by her mother's drinking. I have great admiration for Brooke as she breaks from her mother's control, doesn't become a train wreck herself and finally finds happiness with her husband and daughters.
• 
  Turtlegirl00

  I bought this book for my mother for christmas. she loved brooke shields and loved to read memoirs,among other books. In february my mother passed away and when i went to her house the book was on the coffee table, so i put it in my tote. The timing of my reading this book is eerie. For good or bad my mother and Teri had similarities and the thought processes that brooke had are quite similar to mine... and the feeling i had/have about mom's passing was voiced by brooke in this book. The book made me laugh and cry and i really related. My mother loved me fiercely, there is no denying that, but she had her demons and issues (who doesn't?). I appreciate that this wasn't a mom-bashing book. it comes from a place of understanding and compassion and doesn't put her on a pedestal either. I think it was well done, with an empathetic tone.
• 
  angela power

  AWESOME!!!!!#
  
  I could not put this book down. Brooke has always been a great actress, and I am a fan for sure. It just goes to show that not every actor or actress is perfect or has a perfect life. Every family has their problems. It's how you grown up and come away from them intact. This is a great read. Brooke Shields, you are a wonderful person and writer.
  Angela Power
• 
  Dorothea

  The writing itself was choppy and not personal to me - it felt detached and as if the puns were forced. The only thing she really delved into was her mom's alcoholism and not deeply. Just didn't do it for me.