ORIGINAL PUB: 2012, e-book
GENRE: Nonfiction/Biography/Television
PURCHASE: link
AUTHOR SITE: link
MY GRADE: A-
FROM PUBLISHER: INSIDE KATE GOSSELIN'S 'HOUSE OF HORRORS' Conspiracy. Massive Coverup. Lawsuits and Legal Threats. Exploitation. Fraud. Abuse. Animal Cruelty. Lies. Read The Book that two of the most powerful law firms in the country have tried to stop from being published. You'll never look at 'Reality' TV the same again. "She has as much right to this being kept private as anyone," Gosselin's attorney, Marc Randazza, told ABC News.
MY THOUGHTS: The author has a burning hatred for this woman, star of TLC's Jon & Kate Plus 8/Kate Plus 8. At the time he was a celebrity reporter for a well-known magazine and he happened to live about 10 minutes away from Kate. He stole her trash on more than a few occasions, which had some of her journals in it, and interviewed some of her family members, became friends with her ex husband Jon, and basically stalked her for a few years. That's where a lot of the material for this exposé came from.
He said Kate was promiscuous as a teen (p. 15) but gave no information to back that up. He said she left home then but didn't elaborate on it, knowing full well we'd want to know all about it. Does he know more about that but didn't want to share it or is he saving it for a sequel? The chapter titled The Formative Years was good but could have been so much better, more detailed. It was no surprise to find out in that chapter that Kate really is mentally ill but I never expected that to be made public.
Since the author interviewed some of her siblings it would have been nice to have learned a bit more about Kate's childhood and when her bipolar diagnosis came about. It must have been before she became famous, maybe as a teenager, since she stopped talking to her siblings then and I can't imagine her telling any of them her personal business after that.
Self-published books are notorious for having spelling issues and this one is full of those and formatting problems. Too much time was spent on her poor spelling in her tweets and he felt the need to point out twice that she misspelled the word 'gorgeous'. Without the bad Twitter spelling, contract details, and the repetitiveness of things already discussed this book could have been 200 pages shorter. Much of the material in this is repeated throughout. Better editing on his part would have caught that. I do give him credit for exposing her lies in her tweets.
My complaints about the author: Too much time was spent nitpicking every little thing about her, like her going to get her hair and nails done while the kids were home with a babysitter. He complains that Kate never takes eight kids to the theater when really, who cares? Are they really missing out on anything? He bitches about her using newspaper as wrapping paper with no bows. So what? He complained about Kate not taking her kids to the beach then proceeded to tell us what a great father he is for taking his three kids to one. He toots his own horn quite a lot.
The author went too far in calling Kate racist and even had that word printed on the cover of original e-book version of this book when again he had no evidence to back up that claim. He considers her making 'Asian eyes' once to be racist when we've all done it, especially as children, and there's nothing 'racist' about it. Jon's Korean mother or grandmother would make them Korean food so once on camera Kate called her their 'Korean food maker'. I took that to mean she's the maker of Korean food but since the author hates Kate's guts he chooses to believe Kate is pointing out the woman's ethnicity, calling her their 'Korean food maker'. She had an African doctor so she calls him 'African', and again, the author thinks that's racist. If she called a German man 'German' or a Welsh woman 'Welsh' he'd have never said a word...because they're white. He's really grasping at straws when really it's so unnecessary; she looks terrible on her own without you trying to invent more ways.
I believe all of what the author said was written in her journals and I believe all of what he said her siblings and relatives have told him about Kate. I just wish he had focused less on trivial stuff like bad spelling and salon visits. I do hope that one day there will be a follow-up book. I've been a fan of the show since season 1 and even though Kate is very disturbed (she pulled poor Collin up by his hair when he was 2), I'll continue to watch her show, Kate Plus 8.
You can read a good summary of the book here.
I purchased this book myself.
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