Remembering Whitney

It is hard to rate a book like this- a grieving mom retelling her memories of her now deceased child. First let me say that I was annoyed by the grammatical errors in the book.... I hate that writing and editing isn't taken more seriously nowadays.

There were so many things that I did not know about

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Whitney Houston, but this book did not give a lot of insight into her per se. It was a book about Cissy Houston- about her willful ignorance about her daughter's drug use, about her choice to miss out on some of her daughter's most important performances, and about her lack of knowledge about how to deal with difficult situations. While I totally respect that Ms. Houston is a mom struggling to come to terms with her daughter's passing (I have seen my own mother do the same after my sister's death), I found myself shaking my head in disbelief that a mom would not intervene before it became so bad. Her excuses for not acknowledging the issues ("she told me not worry") are shameful, at best.

I am glad that she did not blab too much about what Bobbi Kristina experienced, but am shocked that nowhere in this book does she mention actively trying to protect Bobbi Kristina from any of them. And she says that she is angry with her brothers because they were not protecting their sister, but she doesn't protect her daughter. Cissy admits to her own "partying" habits (which I can only believe means substance abuse because she calls her kids' abuse "partying" as well), but she doesn't seem to make any effort to educate her children on the pitfalls of fame....

I know I should be reviewing the book and not her parenting style, but the book reads like a mission to convince the world that she was a good mother who just didn't know any better. The only problem is that she admits to be told numerous times about her daughter's walk on the dark side, and she chose to do nothing until she was in too deeply.

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