Little Girl Blue

Karen Carpenter's real story finally revealed!

If you love the Carpenters music, and consider Karen Carpenter's voice one of the most precious ever, you're going to enjoy learning more about her! Even those who don't care for the Carpenters music, this is a beautiful, nice, interesting, musical, but also sad and tragic story! But certainly one that will keep you interested from start to finish, and you will be longing to learn more and understand more about this life which was over way too soon! If you already know a lot about the Carpenters and what ultimately happened with Karen, you are going to learn much more, because this book tells this story in a way it's never been told before, with some of her closest friends thoroughly telling us new information for the first time! The more you read, the closer you get to her and her family! In the end, you feel like you know Karen very well, almost personally!
From a childhood in Connecticut, filled with records, sports, and dear friends, through an adolescence with a lot of music and the discovery of her great friend, the drum kit, to a youth full of gold records and awards! The personal conflicts, the struggle for true love and self control over her own life! The extensive touring and the attempt at a solo effort! The big admiration for a dear brother she looked up to and who loved her endlessly, and the unhappy, failed marriage! The depth of a beautiful, velvety, hevenly-sent voice, the disease, and the death!
Karen was a truly beautiful young woman, she was pretty! But, behind the golden voice, there were many layers of a life with which she was happy, but it was not yet close to a life she dreamed of. She could never seem to find true love, despite being the center of attention to the Carpenters audience! The author Randy Schmidt did a wonderful and extensive job of years to make interviews and fill the gaps of this story, in a very well done tribute to this amazingly talented lady who inspired and still inspires the lives of many people, from all ages and different parts of the world.
Her voice talks straight into my soul, the songs she sang talk straight into my heart, and the connection I feel with her is unaccountably natural, even though we're separated by time and space, so I wanted to get closer to her and learn about her story, and that was when this excellent book came out! And I've read it a bunch of times since then!
Now we have this amazing audiobook version of this best-seller! It was read beautifully by Cheryl Bentyne, who has this incredible voice, and she was present on the day of Karen's last public appearance in January 1983, less than a month prior to Karen's passing, in the context of a reunion of Grammy-winning artists. She adds her beautiful voice to the telling of this story, with a soft and excellent reading, a great choice! Very good job! I loved both the book and the audiobook version of Little Girl Blue, and I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!

11 of 11 people found this review helpful

rare glimpse into the life of Karen carpenter

Listening to the story unfold of Karen Carpenter's life gives an individual a feel of what is was like for her living on this Earth. I always wondered what her Mother was really like and also sensed that Richard wasn't divulging the true nature of his mother, when in fact, he was covering up for her. I got the rare opportunity to see the Carpenters perform when I was a teenager in the seventies and was impressed by her drumming. And oh that wonderful voice! Listening to this account also makes you want to stop at times and listen to their recordings. Enjoy

3 of 3 people found this review helpful

Bait and Switch

Any additional comments?

The writer leads you to believe he's got the inside track on Karen and her eating disorder but instead he goes on and on about the parents, and the family, and the family's friends, and their move to California, and Richard, and how he got into the music industry, and how karen started singing, and how the music industry took on the Carpenters, and their accounting practices... I've listened to 11.5hrs of this book, total amount of time that focused on Karen was 1hr. All you learn about Karen is that she was a tomboy, started out playing drums, and fell into her singing career, he doesn't even touch on her eating disorder. 11.5hrs and that's all I get?! Ridiculous! He should have called it THE CARPENTERS AND THEIR RISE TO THE TOP not THE LIFE OF KAREN CARPENTER. This book is a total fraud.

17 of 24 people found this review helpful

Beautifully written. Excellent book.

I was born in 1979, so I missed out on the phenomenon of the Carpenters. My only real idea of her was of a singer who died of anorexia.

This book really opened my eyes to the remarkable life and outstanding talent of Karen Carpenter. Many things in this book surprised me: I love that she started out playing the drums! She was one of the first well known female drummers in the genre (probably in any genre.) I respect her complete loyalty to her brother, despite her potential to have a very popular solo career. Most of all, I just love her voice. Because I had little knowledge of the music, I kept pausing this book to look up Carpenters music online. I fell in love with her voice!

I enjoyed reading about Karen as a young woman: about her early musical career on the drums, her fantastic collaboration with her brother Richard, and the serendipitous discovery that she had the voice of an angel

I highly recommend for anyone, certainly not just carpenter fans. In fact I think those who are not fans will find this very interesting as well. The author explains issues the Carpenters had with their "goody-goody" image, and how it limited them and their music! There's also a great discussion of other stars like Olivia Newton John, the Jackson Five, and others.

I was really impressed by this book, and can't praise the narrator enough.

I was confused by the reviewer who disparaged the book for making "Karen a victim".
I disagree 100%. There is NO BLAME placed on any one person for Karen's eating disorder. Instead this book succeeds in demonstrating how the illness slowly came about. There's no one thing that caused her condition. She developed a poor body image, meanwhile she was constantly in the public eye, placing incredible pressure on herself to be perfect. It's also a complicated function of many issues like control and self confidence. I never felt like she was victimized!

An excellent book for everyone. I think music lovers will be surprised by how good this book is. A must buy!

12 of 17 people found this review helpful

Tragic in so many ways

painting a clearer picture of this talented artist, this bio is not hammered by Richard's agenda.

I love karen

very informative. easy to follow and insightful on the life and loss of the amazing star: karen carpenter

Karen Carpenter...A friend and legend to all.

I thought this audio book depicted the very essence of Karen Carpenter and would recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the greatest female singing voice there was.

Excellent

Excellent story. Very sad. What a shame. A great group derailed by overwork and self loathing.

Intimate, complex, often dysfunctional story

Fascinated by this tragic story of the legendary singer and the lack of self confidence and unconditional support from the people that should been her biggest cheerleaders.

Brilliant but sad.

What a great reflection on the life of Karen and her inner circle. First, you get the wonderful voice of Cheryl Bentyne, whom I hope does more audiobooks in the future. While this does display some ups and downs of a whirlwind career, it also exposes the downfall of the inner circle, which, I hate to admit had much to do with Karen's decline and subsequent death. As one person in the story put it, you have to get through several different moats to try to reach the true Karen, but I suppose that is common with many celebrities of her and Richard's stature. This book really makes me dislike her uber-controlling mother, Agnes, who shows us all a great lesson in OCD and verbal child abuse that led to Karen's demise. I was thrilled that the author chose to talk at some length about the Todd Haynes cult classic, "Superstar." Sure is was closed down at premieres because Todd did not get the licensing for the music, but also what was missing in the entire story but something that Todd Haynes manages to get through to the audience, if only briefly, that Richard had a "lifestyle" (i.e., gay) that he was hiding. Now knowing how much a control freak that the inner circle was, especially Richard on the 1989 TV docu-drama, it just makes me wonder if this facet was left out of the book because of Richard? This is the only reason it got four stars for the story. Whether it is true or not, good journalism and writing would have at least mentioned this.

Well worth the listen and will listen to again.