Sounds Like Me: My Life (So Far) in Song

by Sara Bareilles Narrated by Sara Bareilles

Overview

Check out Little Voice on Apple TV+! Little Voice is inspired by a lost song from Sara Bareilles's first studio album.

This updated New York Times bestselling collection of essays by seven-time Grammy nominated singer songwriter Sara Bareilles “resonates with authentic and hard-won truths” (Publishers Weekly)-and features new material on the hit Broadway musical, Waitress.

Sara Bareilles “pours her heart and soul into these essays” (Associated Press), sharing the joys and the struggles that come with creating great work, all while staying true to yourself. Imbued with humor and marked by Sara's confessional writing style, this essay collection tells the inside story behind some of her most popular songs. Well known for her chart-topper “Brave,” Sara first broke through in 2007 with her multi-platinum single “Love Song.” She has since released seven albums that have sold millions of copies and spawned several hits.

“A breezy, upbeat, and honest reflection of this multitalented artist” (Kirkus Reviews), Sounds Like Me reveals Sara Bareilles, the artist-and the woman-on songwriting, soul searching, and what's discovered along the way.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

08/31/2015
In this balanced, honest collection of eight essays, each “anchored by song,” Grammy-nominated singer Bareilles shares the story of her life “so far,” beginning with her childhood in Eureka, Calif. When she was 12, her parents divorced but remained on good terms; Bareilles journaled her way through the experience, learning early on to use paper and pen as a way to process her innermost feelings. Teased by peers as a child, she was scarred by “fat trashing” but eventually found her way to a new school and friends, theater, and singing. After a broken teenage love affair, Bareilles wrote the popular song “Gravity” and began her journey to professional songwriting and singing, eventually signing a record contract and releasing five albums with and several hits. Readers will also learn the inspiration behind “Once upon Another Time,” “Love Song,” “Beautiful Girl,” “Red,” “Many the Miles,” “Brave” and “She Used to Be Mine” were birthed. Though Bareilles asserts that writing the book was the hardest thing she’s ever done, her prose has a natural rhythm, and the stories behind each song are organically woven throughout. Fans will be more enamored, as, like Bareilles’s music, this biography resonates with authentic and hard-won truths. (Oct.)

Associated Press

"Bareilles pours her heart and soul into these essays."

Ben Folds

"Sara Bareilles is one of my favorite humans, and in my opinion, one of the finest singers and pop music artists of our time... This book, like her songs, is like having a conversation with the lady herself."

StyleCaster.com

Reading the book is like listening to your friend share a really good story over a long overdue coffee date—it just feels so honest.“

Associated Press Staff

"Bareilles pours her heart and soul into these essays."

Library Journal

06/01/2015
The five-time Grammy Award-nominated American singer-songwriter and musician talks about her craft in that same revelatory style that has made her a big name since her 2007 hit, "Love Song."

Kirkus Reviews

2015-08-15
A chart-topping singer/songwriter exposes "the inner workings of my mind and my heart" through this intimate essay collection anchored with music and humor.A five-time Grammy Award nominee, Bareilles conveys her life and career in a series of heartfelt, confessional ruminations written with the passion with which she hones her musical craft, forming an entertaining and candid scrapbook chockablock with memories, lyrics, stories, and photographs. A tomboy growing up the youngest of three sisters in northern California's wooded Humboldt County, the author reveled in building haystacks and catching frogs until her parents' divorce when she was 12, a devastating event that only exacerbated the self-consciousness she felt as the schoolyard "fat kid…the label I was given by my peers." Getting in shape and becoming active in theater empowered her throughout adolescence and shaped her onstage presence. The chapters are each named for a song in her repertoire: "Gravity" describes a formative and exquisitely crushing encounter with heartbreak, while "Love Song" chronicles the author's years as a flourishing artist on the singer/songwriter circuit in Los Angeles (she signed her first record deal in 2005). A unique epistolary section called "Beautiful Girl" includes letters to her former selves to exorcise the demons of the past. Mostly sidestepping hackneyed platitudes for true sentiment, the singer remains genuine whether discussing what she learned while writing on a deadline, the development of her recent theatrical adaptation of "Waitress," or the vulnerability of exposing her life "without the metaphor and mask of music or my singing voice." Bareilles also demonstrates a sense of humor, much like fellow musician Ben Folds, who admits, in his playful introduction, to initially repurposing one of her "Little Voice" promotional CDs to counterbalance an uneven leg on his entertainment center. A breezy, upbeat, and honest reflection of this multitalented artist.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171176488
Publisher:	Simon & Schuster
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

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Sounds Like Me

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