Rating: 
Summary: Interesting approach; average execution
Review: Andrew Morton's approach to describing the Madonna phenomenon is interesting in that he attempts to uncover what are the motivations that drive Madonna. I think he succeeds in that -- talking about her drive and insecurity. The book is an interesting read, however it falls short of puting Madonna in a broader perspective -- as a fascinating creation of American culture, as an entrepreneur and one of the notable pop music stars of the late 20th century. Other than her earnings and desire for control, Morton spends little time on the business aspects of Madona's success, which is no less fascinating than her musical accomplishments.
Rating: 
Summary: Does this guy have an editor or what?
Review: How irritating to read a book and find it full of typos, run-on sentences, grammatical mistakes and misspellings of words. I am not an english teacher or anything, but come on! I am a real fan but found this so annoying I could barely read it. Some of the sentences were so poorly constructed you had to read them 3 or 4 times just to understand what they meant. Christopher Morton's editor needs to be looking for a new job. This book is a sorry waste of time. Don't bother.
Rating: 
Summary: Andrew Morton can even make Madonna's life seem boring
Review: I am a huge fan of Madonna and was looking forward to an entertaining read...the keyword here is entertaining. Like others have said, Morton's writing is terrible. I know that he is a respected writer of biographies... but this was terrible! I don't know how he did it but he even made Madonna seem boring. The writing didn't flow. Details of later events were thrown in previous chapters and then completed ignored later when they should apply. I felt it was poorly organized and poorly written. Even huge fans will be disappointed. Hopefully Madonna will write her own one day.
Rating:
Summary: Some interesting bits, but mostly boring...
Review: I only found a few bits of things that were interesting in this book. But most of the things written in this book are things that any Madonna fan will already be well aware of, and it's telling that the things I found interesting in this book were largely chunks of Madonna interviews that Mr. Morton had just re-published (note: they were not interviews the Mr. Morton had conducted with Madonna, rather they were interviews from magazines, etc.), as well as bits from others' articles about Madonna. That's the problem with unauthorized biographies, they have to resort to a lot of "gleaning" from other sources. I would suggest just going to the sources themselves, which any Madonna fan can do by buying magazines with her interviews, etc. Andrew Morton's writing is rather uninteresting and dry. In his biographies of Lady Di and Monica Lewinsky, he at least had the cooperation of the subjects. Madonna was in no way affiliated with this book's preparation. Maybe some day she will write her own autobiography. Until then, we will probably have to endure many misinterpretations of Madonna, as I believe this book really misinterprets her.
Rating: 
Summary: Call Me Crazy...But I Think Its Very Well Written
Review: I was shocked to see so many readers dissing this book. Granted, its the first Madonna bio I have read, but I felt that it was written with a lot of care and balance. And I couldn't put it down for five seconds. Mr. Morton is not a weak writer, rather he uses restraint, refusing to sensationalize his subject. Yet, Madonna is a sensational character and her life is dramatic enough to enthrall the reader without the overbearing massaging of the author's touch. I think the author achieved a perfect balance between delivering the goods and respecting the privacy of Madonna's intimate encounters, i.e. he does not go into graphic sexual detail concerning her exploits--and that is fine with me. I don't need those fine details, I have an imagination. In short, I think it was okay that he analyze Madonna psychologically, otherwise, where is the content, where is the meaning? We need to remember that she is a struggler, a survivor, that she cuts and bleeds--that she is not larger than life and inhuman. I would have been much more dissapointed to just have been given sensationalistic gossip and facts with no attempt to tie it altogether in a meaningful way. Morton obviously cared about his subject, repects her ballsy choices, though he never fails to point out the concequences, good and bad, that have come from them. I am a fan, but not insane enough to deny that Madonna has come off as a total fool and embarrasment at times. Morton's analysis offers explanations as to why she is simultaneously irresistible and over-the-top annoying. I totally resonate with his insights and highly recommend this fascinating and well-researched book.
Rating:
Summary: Is this supposed to tell me something new?
Review: Last fall this new Madonna "tell-all" received so much press. I have been a Madonna fan for almost twenty years. This book didn't really reveal much that I hadn't read in other magazines or seen in television specials. The author also spends too much time focusing on Madonna's early years. It would have been okay if he would have found out something interesting about her early years, but he didn't in my opinion. I was so frustrated reading this book, that I rushed through the last 100 pages because I was so ready for the horrible experience of reading this book to be over. It was boring at times. I'm glad I waited to read this one. My suggestion is that you should wait too.
Rating: 
Summary: Madonna Queen of Pop
Review: Madonna... Queen of Pop
This was an interesting read about the Queen of Pop, Madonna. Obviously, Mr. Morton is a fan of Maddy's, as he treats her with relative kid gloves, as opposed to some other recent biographies. I enjoyed the book, but it's not Mr. Morton's best by a long shot! I would recommend Madonna fans to also purchase Matthew Rettenmund's "Encyclopedia Madonnica" and Michael D. Craig's "Who's That Girl? The Ultimate Madonna Trivia Book" for the real low-down on the Material Girl.
Rating:
Summary: Even-handed and relatively informative
Review: Morton writes in a pretty straightforward journalistic style about Madonna's life from childhood through to her marriage to Guy Ritchie. As a fan but not an expert on Madonna, I found the book to be very informative, particularly about her early years in NYC. I enjoyed reading about her relationships with people like the Gilroy brothers, and up until reading this book did not realize the extent of her days in NY, for example, that she had played gigs at Max's Kansas City. The info comes off as being very fair to Madonna in terms of her drive and her progress. She is often portrayed as a heartless climber, but Morton paints the picture of a bright personality who is extremely energetic, motivated, and also loving and caring, even if she does crave the spotlight and need to be the center of attention. The book is more telling about her than the typical Madonna mythology we so often hear. He details her generosity with certain friends, and with AIDS charities, her struggle to make her first marriage work, while also citing incidents of cheapness and bitchiness. Also interesting are the descriptions of her various business ventures, and her non-stop work ethic which spills over into every aspect of her life, from songwriting to running six miles and then working out with weights for an hour. My criticism is that, around the 3/4 point, Morton jumps back and forth a bit erratically in time after his initial description of the birth of Lourdes and the making of Evita. Up until that point, the format was chronological. The content of the book, including Morton's analysis of Madonna's personality, makes for a good bio despite the minor flaws of format.
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it! Just say no!
Review: Ok, So like all of the other huge madonna fan's like me, I have read every madonna book i can get my hand's on. And Was really exicted about this book when it came out. With all the press, hell it was on the cover of people magazine, I expected this book to be more reveling then the madonna unauthorized. What a waste, This book gave me abosultly no new information at all, The overanalyze thing can go somewhere else. And he screwed up so many fact's. And he jump's around to many time's
1) pic of madonna attending a prince concert, He claim's is his jimmy albright, no it's madonna's dancer from blonde ambition, like did he really think he could slide that by madonna fan's?
2) skip's and never return's to thing's, went striaght from sean penn to vanallia ice, like totally skipping over warren betty and toney ward, and only one page devoted to dennis rodmen and jfk jr, Hello the most fanasing romance of madonna's we all want to know about is that romance and only a page!
Don't waste your time with this book, he was just trying to make money of madonna. I give it one star because it does deserve that because of all the pic's it show's of her, most i have never seen before.
Rating:
Summary: ...
Review: This book is so poorly written it's shocking. I lost count of the factual errors, there were at least one on every page. Many of the dates and "facts" are erroneous, he places her in Miami for Thanksgiving 1993 when in fact she was in Australia on tour. One of his so-called 'sources', ex-boyfriend Jimmy Albright, is shown in a photograph with Madonna but guess what? It's not him, it's one of her dancers from the Blond Ambition Tour. If he can make such an obvious mistake like that then how much of the rest of the book are you supposed to believe? His psyhcoanalysis of Madonna is tiresome to say the least. How can he make such judgments about her character having never met her? Wait for Madonna's own memoirs.
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