I tried, really I did. A friend of mine told me the television show was good. After watching a few shows I agreed and thought that the book would be an interesting read.
The writing is so bad that I find it hard to believe the publisher provided Ms. DuBois an editor.
This is the first time in my life (mid 50's) that I put a book aside knowing that I would never pick it up to finish. I kept reading, sometimes literally groaning, hoping things would improve.
The book is filled with judgemental opinions and condescending remarks that just fill up space. When I read her statement that a deceased friends husband stayed married to her friend just for insurance money that was the last of it for me. Who cares and how does she know? That was just mean spirited (no pun intended) I was happy to put the book down. You'll be happy if you never pick the book up.
Allison DuBois is the real-life psychic whose life inspired the hit TV show "Medium," and this memoir is clearly DuBois's attempt to cash in even more on the connection. I really wanted to like it, actually, because I love the show and really like HER. But this book was too obviously thrown together quickly in an attempt to hurry up and make money off the show's success. The result is a choppy, repetitive book that never gives us any real depth at all. It's primarily made up of little two-to-three page vignettes, sometimes about DuBois's youth, sometimes a rumination on her "gift," and sometimes some very vague and not terribly exciting details about a case she was involved with. It's not badly written -- DuBois is articulate and intelligent -- but it's just kind of. . . fluffy. In terms of offering insight into the world of a real psychic, I have to say I've gotten more from the fictional Allison than I did from the real one, which is pretty disappointing to say the least.
Anyway, diehard fans of the show may enjoy flipping through this -- you'll definitely recognize things in the book that you've seen on the show (I was pleased to discover that Joe is as much a sweetie in real life as he is on TV). But don't expect too much from this -- it's pretty much a marketing tool, and that's it.
