I really enjoyed reading about Yoko Ono's life. Typically, when you read anything about her, it is all about John Lennon.

Yoko's life is fascinating. It starts with her complicated relationship with her mother. Then her traveling and nomad family. I found her early life to be page-turning.

Once she met Lennon, I started to lose a little interest. I think because I was reading about a strong woman and felt like she lost a lot of herself within that marriage. I am not sure. I am sure a lot of readers villainize Ono. But I think her life was interesting to read.

The cover and typeface are stunning, definitely the reason I picked this up.
Sadly I didn't enjoy the biography. It was incredibly dry and I felt held at arms length. It didn't feel very personal, just extremely matter of-fact-put-together from articles.
Yoko Ono certainly had an interesting life, but I still feel like I don't get it (and probably never will). To support the reading I watched a lot of YouTube clips of her performances and there's no denying that she has done a lot for the art world, but I find that altogether I'm not a fan.

I'd recommend this to Yoko Ono fans. If you're just curious (like me), maybe watch a documentary instead.

Thank you Netgalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review.

I highly recommend this book! I absolutely loved it and this book finally gives Yoko Ono the respect she deserves. She has been a vastly under recognized artist in her own right and I learned so much by reading Donald Brackett's comprehensive biography of her. Some of the things I did not know - her fascinating family background and history for example and the fact that she had a daughter from another marriage who she spent years trying to find and reconnect with. I did not know that because of her artistic background in film and Avant-Garde art, Paul McCarthy had originally asked her to film the documentary footage but when she turned him down, they hired Michael Lindsey Hogg and ultimately this is the footage Peter Jackson used for the Get Back - his recent documentary of the Beatles studio recordings. What is interesting is finally we get to see Yoko by John's side in the documentary which the myth was always she caused the tension and led to the break-up of the Beatles -- but not only does the footage contradict that myth, we also learn in this book that John was battling a serious drug addiction at the time and actually Yoko became his rock and anchor during that time. A couple of eerie moments -- when John saw a portrait of Yoko's great grandfather, he saw his own reflection and said that he was John in a past life -- Yoko immediately said "no, don't say that" because he had been assassinated -- gave me chills reading this. I also learned that the song "Imagine" was Yoko's concept and lyrics and it took until 2018 for her to finally get credit for co-authorship. There are so many factors why Yoko was underappreciated (from the Beatles popularity even though they were already on the way to breaking up when she came on the scene, and sexism/racism). I highly recommend this book and have started to listen to her music and explore her art (the book has a great and detailed reference section to all her work in the appendix).
Thank you to Netgalley and Sutherland House for a preview copy in exchange for my honest opinion.

This book was not at all what I expected.

The authors writing style is very dry. It was almost a chore to try to finish this book.

I did not review this on Goodreads. In short, this was a waste of my time.

So much has been said, read and written about Yoko Ono.
In the very early 1960’s, long before her path would cross with John Lennon, she was establishing herself as an avant-garde performance artist, film maker and author. As a young girl growing up in Japan she was classically trained in voice and piano. Exhibiting in New York and London she was one of the founders of Fluxus, a group of experimental artists that also included composer John Cage.
Her most famous role and that in which the spotlight would always shine was the lover and eventual second wife of John Lennon. She was instantly viewed as the woman who broke up Lennon’s marriage to the much loved Cynthia and who also broke up the much loved Beatles. With Yoko’s constant side by side presence in John’s life, came a barrage of criticism, racism and personal attacks about her looks and her life as a twice married mother of a young daughter, There were drug busts, miscarriages, nude album cover photographs and ‘events’ that kept John and Yoko in the news but not always as media darlings.
Yoko’s artistic and conceptual mind influenced and affected the ever learning John Lennon. She opened his mind and his eyes. She was in many ways, the missing link in his life. Of that, there is no doubt. She (with Lennon’s complete trust) took over the family business and since his untimely death in 1980, has managed his estate with dignity and respect.
In my eyes and that of the author, Yoko has lived an extraordinary life that needed to be told. At the age of 89, her time has more than come! She deserves to be known for not only who she is but for everything she has contributed to the art and music world.
As John sang in the 1980 hit (Just like) Starting Over, ‘ It’s been too long since we took the time, No one’s to blame, I know time flies so quickly’.
My thanks to NetGalley, Donald Brackett and Sutherland House for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.

I don't know much about Yoko Ono before reading this book, and I think this book gives a great overview of her life - both well-known and little known events. Since I know almost nothing about her (and The Beatles), it is an interesting read to understand one of the most legendary couples in the music history.

As a lifelong Beatles fan who has read tons of books about The Beatles over the decades, I have read extensively by association about John Lennon's second wife/widow, Yoko Ono. However, I have always wanted to read a biography solely centered upon this multi-faceted artist. Not only was this a very good biography of Yoko Ono Lennon for people who don't know much (or anything) about her, it provided me, an amateur Beatles historian, with some new kernels of information. This is always a thrill- like finding buried treasure. At the same time, I found several instances where certain facts that I've read uncountable times in other books were contradicted in this one. None of them were game changers that would rock my world, and overall this author covered his subject magnificently, traced back from her grandparents through her current status as a fragile 89 year old. Yoko has been a controversial figure since the sixties when John Lennon left first wife Cynthia for this older, Japanese eventual double divorcee. Many Beatles fans ardently accuse her of breaking up The Beatles. Her evolution as an avant garde performance artist and musician, along with her struggle to be recognized as such while being branded as an appendage of John Lennon- is artfully laid out.

Thank you to the publisher Sutherland House for providing an advance reader copy via NetGalley.

⭐⭐⭐ -- LOVE the cover on this one!

I wanted to love this one more than I did. I find Yoko Ono to be such a fascinating woman and was looking forward to diving deeper into her life. Unfortunately, I didn't get the "intimate" feeling I wanted from this story. I found it to be dry and it very much felt like the author was just skimming her life story. It wasn't a terrible book by any means, and there is a lot of history of the times included I found interesting. Perhaps I was a victim of my own expectations. 🤷🏻‍♀️

**ARC Via NetGalley**

I don’t know much about Yoko Ono or I didn’t know much about her. I knew from pictures that she was incredibly stylish and stunning but I didn’t know much about her life. She’s truly an interesting human being an artist in her own right. I’m glad the author stepped from behind the lens of misogyny and showed her true character.