I love Barbra Streisand and read anything I can about her. I found this book to be quite heavy going although still enjoyed it but I think you have got be a dedicated fan to read all the way through.

This would have been a much more readable and engaging book if the author hadn’t been quite so in love with his subject. I don’t think I’ve ever read such an adulatory biography – or biographical essay as it is more correctly called. Talk about fawning – really quite sickly at times. Nevertheless if you can wade through all the sweetness there’s much here to enjoy and as a portrait of Streisand it does what it sets out to do. The book is part of the Yale University Press Jewish Lives Series, a series of brief (although this one certainly seemed too long at times) biographies exploring a wide range of diverse Jewish figures, so it’s not surprising that Gabler concentrates very much on Streisand’s Jewishness and how integral it is to her life and career. He states his case convincingly but rather too repetitively. There doesn’t seem to be any original research here, as Gabler merely quotes from other people, so there’s little new to learn. But it’s a quick and easy, if somewhat superficial, study of an iconic figure, and overall I found it a compelling, if sometimes irritating, read.