MJ BOOKCLUB: You Are Not Alone
Finally had the chance to finish reading the first part of You Are Not Alone by Jermaine Jackson and I got some thoughts and feelings. Some are HEEHEE (positive) and some are AOWW (negative).
But I’ll give a full proper review when I’m done reading the whole book for now here are some thoughts:
I realized this book was not written for (super) fans. Not because we never tire from reading about how it all started but I felt like (and he’s mentioned) he’s done extensive research for this book. He mentioned regretting not writing things down when he was younger about his and his brother’s life. And to me when reading I could pinpoint exactly which video, article, interview, documented moment he meticulously included in the first part titled The beginning - The early years. It’s proof, it’s evidence.
How is this a bad thing? It’s not… however, I could’ve gone less with him softening their father’s image, unintentionally (and I don’t believe Jermaine is a terrible person I know some fans really dislike him) minimizing his brother’s lived traumatic experiences with their father and him inserting himself as much as he can like saying how he thinks his parents did such an amazing job naming him Jermaine LaJuane but somehow they fumbled the bag naming his brother just Michael Joe. Jermaine relax…
Then again Jermaine has always sort of portrayed himself this way. And it unfortunately rubs the fans the wrong way. But I really believe just by reading the first part I know he didn’t keep the fans at the center. This book is for the naysayers, the press/tabloids, and everyone who didn’t want to make use of their critical thinking skills (btw not a diss but if the shoe fits…) in regards to making up their own opinions about Michael and rather take whatever tabloid/news source/terrible use of word of mouth said about his brother. That’s very clear to me because if by any chance the gears in the readers mind start turning and they want to google/look things up they’ll find the videos, the interviews, the articles etc. it’s out there.
Jermaine really did do his research as he stated. I’ve made little notes and was thinking of compiling a list of where you could find the videos and interviews. I personally kinda did it for myself before reading this book based on other old magazine interviews and books on Michael so it was easy to be like “oh I know what video/interview he’s referring to when Michael said XYZ and repeated such things in the past in his younger years” (yes I like to dive deep) but I think if this book ever gets re-released again I wouldn’t be surprised if that becomes an add-on because people are lazy and don’t like to look things up for themselves. But then there’s the off chance someone might accuse him of just looking things up and trying to write stories and anecdotes based on these videos and interviews. Why? Because of his tumultuous relationship with his brother way back then and people till this day believing that Jermaine always was and always will be jealous of his brother.
I used to believe he was always jealous but not in a super negative way. Take LaToya for instance (and I will be writing my thoughts about her too one day). At face value but also through her own words wanted to be Michael. The way she performed and before she unfortunately got with that terrible evil man that abused, used and brainwashed her, she wanted what Michael had but it wasn’t in a weird way. She adored her brother and wanted to follow in his footsteps. Sadly it wasn’t enough to keep her from letting others forge a wedge between her and her family. People really dragged her through the mud it’s really sad the comments people leave behind on her videos.
I of course am not obtuse! I understand WHY because of the things she said about her brother/family. But back to mister LaJuane I think when you’re under the lens of scrutiny the most tiniest (and bigger) details and things like regular degular sibling rivalry tend to EXPLODE just like Michael’s career. It EXPLODES and everyone is trying to fill in the gaps. Gaps we will never ever be privy to. We (especially -younger- fans of Michael since 2009 and later) need to understand that the time and generation was different back then. I certainly don’t condone it but we gotta KEEP our thinking caps on. Yes, Jermaine did Word to the Badd!! and it is extremely hurtful but families unfortunately say and do hurtful things. Not excusing it. Honestly that song should’ve remained in the drafts or better yet a journal and later deleted but sadly it spread like wildfire and that’s something he’s going to and has continued to live with as a consequence of his actions (which he’s mentioned in the book - yes I skipped to later sections because I wanted to know if he was only going to fluff things up the whole time and not address other things like this song for example).
I’m looking forward to reading the rest of the book. I’ll say this… reading this book so far I’ve concluded that Jermaine LAJUANE Jackson is such a frikkin’ Sagittarius it’s annoying lmao if you’re into astrology like me I’d love to hear your thoughts on that aspect too.
