More Myself: A Journey

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I listened to Alicia Keys' More Myself right after listening to Glennon Doyle's Untamed, and the two books are very similar. Both recount a journey inwards, and both convey the difficulty of celebrity on one's relationships and one's soul. Both Doyle and Keys go through a long tumultuous process just to claim their truth, their boundaries and their power. The authors narrated each of these books, so there was a lot of passion in the telling of their stories. Alicia Keys is a wonderful role model for young women who want to work in the arts. She works extremely hard learning to play the piano and sing, and writing songs. I love that she later became an activist, showing young women that fighting for women's rights is cool and vitally important.

The only thing that made me cringe was that Alicia first described her husband-to-be as ostentatious and way over the top, declaring that those were not her values; then she proceeds to describe some of their elaborate birthday parties and luxury trips, and I thought, "Hmmm, where did your values go Alicia?" But for most of the book, she seems to have her priorities straight- work hard, create great music, give back to your community, and use your power to do good works. And she certainly deserves a rest in between albums!

As a musician and piano teacher with eclectic tastes I especially appreciated her conviction: "Great music is not confined to one style."

After reading these two books, one feels compelled to ask the universe, "Why do we women have to keep fighting just to love and honor ourselves? To define ourselves? To be taken seriously?"

I think that books such as More Myself and Untamed will help both young and mature women to look inward to reclaim our self-love, our power, and our life choices.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5 on Goodreads. Hardcover 272 pages. Audiobook 10 hrs.