Rabu, 13 Oktober 2010

Justin Bieber's first book hits store shelves

TORONTO — Justin Bieber's diehard fans were likely hitting the books Tuesday as the 16-year-old teen-pop sensation's autobiography hit store shelves.


"Justin Bieber First Step 2 Forever: My Story" is a 240-page hardcover book packed with colourful photos of the Stratford, Ont., star performing and cavorting backstage. The cover has a prominent "100 per cent official" stamp of approval.

Written from Bieber's perspective, the book covers his childhood, his early success as a YouTube sensation, and how he eventually moved with his mother to Atlanta and quickly rose to international stardom.

He remains positive throughout, whether discussing his home country, his eating habits, his love of hockey or heaping praise on his support team: his manager, vocal coach, tutor, and of course, his family.

His sense of humour is filtered through as well, with boasts of his proclivity for pranks, and relentless references to actor Chuck Norris.

But he also delves into his parents' relationship -- Jeremy Bieber and Pattie Mallette had Justin when they were teenagers -- and their subsequent divorce.

"Mom basically worked her butt off at whatever job she could get to keep a roof over our heads," Bieber writes.

"We lived in public housing, and there were no luxuries at our little apartment, but it never occurred to me that we were poor.

"We had each other, which was everything we needed."

He takes pains to point out how normal he is, and how little he's changed despite his success.

"My world got very big, very fast, and based on a lot of sad examples from the past, a lot of people expect me to get lost in it," he writes.

"I'm surrounded by super-smart, super-talented, extremely good people who love me and watch out for me every step of the way.

"They don't let me lose sight of where I came from or where I'm going. And they don't get me get away with any crap."

But at the same time, he writes that his family isn't entirely "normal" and he likes it that way.

"I don't know if there's any such thing as a 'normal' family, and if there is, they'd probably be the most boring people ever. Or the scariest," he writes.

"Seriously, it would be creepy to even have dinner with the Perfect Family.

"The whole time you'd be thinking they can't be this perfect, they're probably holding the butcher's knife under the table ready to kill me, or they've got a mailman chained up in the basement or something."

In addition to the colourful photos, the book is padded with snippets of Bieber's lyrics and archived updates from his popular Twitter feed.

Not surprisingly, his almost 5.7 million Twitter followers made his book a trending topic on Tuesday.

"Justin Bieber First Step 2 Forever: My Story" is published by HarperCollins and retails for $24.99.