A review by fluteplayer7
Gospel According to Coco Chanel: Life Lessons from the World's Most Elegant Woman by Karen Karbo
1.0
This is a good one to skip unless you really don't have anything better to read. I generally enjoy these "light" books about fashion and fashion divas but I this one didn't have many redeeming qualities. Chanel is an enigma. She intentionally kept her private life obscure (mostly by lying about it!) and no amount of research is going to unearth much about her. I adore Chanel, partly because she is so unknowable. I didn't expect to find many facts in here that I didn't already know. I got what I expected in that regard.
What I did not like about this book were the extended, long-winded, irrelevant tangents that involved the author's inane obsession with shopping for Chanel on ebay (why would you do that, anyway??) and other personal diatribes about modern social thinking that seem to terribly miss the mark. Part psuedo-science, part psuedo-psychology and totally unfounded "truths" about modern social thinking on topics like marriage, dating, women's self-image and fashion cropped up several times, often not terribly related to Chanel at all and containing to real information or factual basis.
When I want to read about other people's personal opinions/pet peeves/rants, I opt for a book that claims to be that. I don't want to read about them in a book that claims to be about Chanel.
What I did not like about this book were the extended, long-winded, irrelevant tangents that involved the author's inane obsession with shopping for Chanel on ebay (why would you do that, anyway??) and other personal diatribes about modern social thinking that seem to terribly miss the mark. Part psuedo-science, part psuedo-psychology and totally unfounded "truths" about modern social thinking on topics like marriage, dating, women's self-image and fashion cropped up several times, often not terribly related to Chanel at all and containing to real information or factual basis.
When I want to read about other people's personal opinions/pet peeves/rants, I opt for a book that claims to be that. I don't want to read about them in a book that claims to be about Chanel.