Anna Nicole Smith was born in Texas in 1967. She began her career with Playboy in 1992, and did some modeling work for Guess Jeans around the same time. During this time period, she adopted her stage name of Anna Nicole, getting rid of her birth name of Vickie Lynn. She did a considerable amount of modeling work, being featured in several magazines and ad campaigns. I actually remember her from her role on Ally McBeal and The Anna Nicole Show. Of course, her marriage to her considerably older husband, J. Howard Marshall was all over the media at the time when I first became aware of her. Before she died, her son, Daniel, died, which caused her great emotional pain. She was never quite the same after that, and most believe that her drug use began or escalated terribly around that time, resulting in her own death.

This book posits that the author is a person who knew Anna Nicole Smith the best. In fact, the author is her estranged half sister, with whom she had little to no relationship. Being related to someone via blood does not mean that you have an intimate relationship with them and are able to speak about their lives and their secrets. I have very little to do with a lot of my family members, and though they may be able to comment on my childhood, they certainly know nothing about me, my family, or my life now. The author of this book included interviews with Anna Nicole's brother, who seemed much less like he was trying to cash in on his famous sibling's name and death than the actual author of the book. This was more a book about the life of Donna Hogan and how she thought and felt than anything substantial about Anna Nicole. In addition to the fact that Donna Hogan had plenty of opinions and conflicting feelings about her family and experiences, which she should have worked out in therapy instead of writing this book, the book was poorly written. It was poorly edited. It was just not enjoyable at all to read, even for whatever tell-all gossip she tried to include.

I rarely rate things one or zero stars, and I rarely regret taking time to read something, but here we are. I grabbed this book on a whim last week when I went to the library and they didn't have the books I was looking for. I remember Anna Nicole Smith being on tv and remember her dying, so I thought this would be an interesting book. It wasn't very long either, so that was another selling point. If I could turn back time.... I am sure that there are more interesting books on Anna Nicole Smith out there somewhere for anyone interested in her, but I would skip this one if I were you.