Whole Again: Love, Life and Me by Kerry Katona

Book Review Mar 12, 2023

My review

3/5 stars

I didn't read the blurb on this book before I borrowed it from the library, I just picked it up because I used to love Kerry Katona back in her Atomic Kitten days; the title spoke to me and I fancied seeing what she was up to these days. Safe to say, I was not expecting the triggering content included; big time discussion of domestic abuse included.

What I will applaud with this book is how brutally honest Kerry was about her situation. She didn't shy away from any of the harrowing detail, and wasn't shy about including all of the nitty-gritty of the fallout on her kids as well. She was brave in her retelling of events; incredibly vulnerable and open but determined not to have a victim mentality. Whatever you think of Kerry Katona and the way she's lived her life, I don't think anyone could deny that she is a strong woman.

What I struggled with was the contradiction of her attitude. On several occasions throughout the book, she said that she didn't want her kids to ever read the book and question that she loved all of their dads at some point or another; this was particularly true of her youngest, whose father was the domestic abuser. This is a lovely thing to write, as it reassures her kids that they were all born out of love, even if things went wrong after that. However, she then totally contradicts herself by giving eye-watering detail of the most horrible things that her now-deceased husband did to her (and threatened to do to the kids), as well as talking about her previous two husbands in less-than-stellar terms. While I can appreciate that she feels those things about her ex-husbands, and she has a right to share those feelings, they don't sit well with her message of not wanting her kids to read certain things about their fathers.

I also found the book a little repetitive in content, especially when she was talking about her kids. She covered the same ground and extolled the same virtues several times throughout the book, which was particularly frustrating when she then dedicated a whole chapter to her kids at the end of the book where she said it all again.

Ultimately, this book is inspiring. It shows a woman who has come through a lot of tough situations and is still determined to see the best in life and in people, with a permanent hopeful outlook. She's shared her story as she sees fit, and I commend her bravery in doing so.

Book blurb

As one of the most recognisable faces in showbiz today, Kerry Katona has seen more than her fair share of ups and downs played out in public.

Once labelled ‘the nation’s sweetheart,’ the Atomic Kitten singer rose from foster care to international stardom, but soon found herself judged and ridiculed as mental health problems and bad decisions derailed her life.

From a picture perfect yet fractured marriage to one of the biggest pop stars in the world, to her fall from grace in a haze of drink and drugs while wed to her taxi driving second husband, Kerry has been loved and derided in equal measure. But since her bestselling autobiography was released in 2012, which documented her troubled childhood and subsequent life in the limelight, Kerry has faced her most devastating challenges yet.

In this riveting read, Kerry documents how, in the decade since, she’s welcomed her fifth child, suffered a debilitating injury, a cancer scare, several tragic losses and a career slump she thought she’d never recover from. Yet the most significant event in that time was her marriage to third husband, George Kay.

Stuck in an abusive relationship she felt powerless to leave, Kerry opens up about her struggles living with a violent man, whose mental health problems and drug use would see her and her family trapped in a cycle of helplessness and despair that only ended when George died in 2019, having eaten a sock filled with cocaine while staying in a local Travel Inn. Kerry bravely reveals her hell at the hands of a man who would unleash physical and emotional torture on her, in an all too familiar situation so many women face every day.

But this is also a story of hope, strength and survival. Of how Kerry, with the support of her now -fiancé Ryan and her children, built herself up from the lowest point imaginable, with sheer grit and determination, to get her life and career back on track in the wake of such devastation.

It’s a story of survival and peace and how, after years of desperately trying to find her way, she has finally started to feel – in the words of her most famous song –Whole Again.