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Brunette Ambition

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The star of the hit show Glee shares her experiences and insider tips on beauty, fashion, inner strength, and more in an illustrated book that’s part memoir, part how-to, and part style guide.

Lea Michele is one of the hardest working performers in show business. Whether she’s starring as Rachel Berry on Glee, rocking a glamorous look on the red carpet, recording her solo album, or acting as the spokesperson for L’Oreal, Lea is the ultimate multi-tasker. She knows better than anyone that it is difficult to be your best self and keep things in perspective when your to-do list is overflowing and you are faced with challenges, so she’s developed a foolproof system for remaining healthy and centered. In Brunette Ambition, she reveals the lessons and advice that have worked for her--from beauty and fashion secrets to fitness tips, and career insights. Supplemented with never-before-seen photos and revealing anecdotes, it’s the book Lea wishes she’d had in her teens and early twenties: A practical and inspirational guide to harnessing tenacity and passion and living the fullest life, no matter what obstacles life puts in your way.

208 pages, Hardcover

First published May 20, 2014

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Lea Michele

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5 stars
865 (26%)
4 stars
757 (23%)
3 stars
887 (27%)
2 stars
478 (14%)
1 star
233 (7%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 443 reviews
Profile Image for Christy.
4,631 reviews36k followers
January 4, 2019
4 stars!

Lea Michele photo Lea10.gif

Lea Michele is one of my favorite actresses. I’ve followed her on Broadway for the longest time, and I love her on Glee. This was a quick audio book (around 3 hours) that was read by her. I enjoyed listening to it. There wasn’t too much about Lea I hadn’t already known, but I liked getting her tips and info on how she does self care, how she eats, and all kinds of other info on her. It was nothing too special, but a quick and easy listen I’d recommend to any fans of hers.
Profile Image for Allison.
55 reviews7 followers
June 29, 2014
I had a hard time not throwing up. Lea should visit a 3rd world country and check her priorities. I suppose I'm the wrong audience--narcissistic, first-world, teenage girls would think this book is fascinating.

It sounds a lot like Rachel Berry herself wrote this.
Profile Image for Natalie Monroe.
665 reviews3,887 followers
May 21, 2016
The last celebrity autobiography I read was Yes, My Accent Is Real: and Some Other Things I Haven't Told You by The Big Bang Theory's Kunal Nayyer. And it was fabulous. Dry-witted, poignant, and contained lots of information about his childhood, how he got into acting, and The Big Bang Theory.



Brunette Ambition is:

-20% healthy eating
-20% beauty tips
-20% fashion
-20% workout tips
-10% cheesy motivation quotes her publicist went into orgasms over
-10% personal background and stuff about Glee



I bet 90% of us bought Brunette Ambition to hear her talk about Glee. It's how most of us were introduced to Lea Michele and became a fan.

The Glee chapter is shoved in the very back, almost as an afterthought, but I guarantee it's a marketing move to get us to slog on so we can get to the main dish. It's nothing much the casual fan hasn't already read in interviews or articles. Most of it is dedicated to the car crash before her Rachel audition and a couple more tidbits I honestly don't remember because they're that forgettable.

What I liked are the chapters on Johnathan Groff and her time onstage before she landed the role of Rachel. Everything else I skimmed.

Here is a brilliant, successful actress who landed the main role of a hit TV show, yet her "autobiography" has less content than the guy who plays a side character that's usually the butt of the group's jokes. Hello, sexism.
Profile Image for Jessica.
165 reviews126 followers
May 23, 2014
To anyone who knows me personally, I have a massive girl crush on Lea Michele. I started following her career back when I first heard some of the music from Spring Awakening, which was the same year that it was nominated for all of the Tony awards in 2007. (I can’t help it, I’m a Broadway musical nerd and I spend a lot of time in my car singing along to soundtracks)

Anyway, by the time Glee premiered in 2009 I had already been listening to the Spring Awakening soundtrack for two years and was already familiar with Lea’s amazing voice, but had never actually seen her perform other than in grainy bootleg versions of Spring Awakening on YouTube. Needless to say, I was basically hooked at the beginning.
Lea’s book follows her rise to stardom through the ups and downs of her Broadway career as a child in Les Miserables, Ragtime, and Fiddler on the Roof. She details her decision to have a normal high school experience before returning to workshop Spring Awakening and meeting her best friend J Groff. (Who, by the way, I had a giant crush on as well.)

The novel is interspersed with advice concerning personal health and beauty care, (I do plan on trying her bath routine to get smoother skin), healthy recipes that range from Vegan to Pescatarian, and beauty advice straight from her beauty team. Which, let’s face it, always make her look fabulous, so how can we ignore their advice?

I think the best part of Brunette Ambition is Lea’s ability to make the reader feel like she is talking directly to them, and the reader gets a chance to find out what all they might have in common with the singer/actress. For instance, Heathers is one of my favorite movies of all time, and evidently it is in Lea’s top ten movies to watch with her girlfriends!

I was a bit disappointed that there wasn’t a specific chapter on Cory (only because the Edelweiss page showed that he was supposed to originally have his own chapter), but I understand why there isn’t and respect her desire to only share her gratitude for his love and influence on her life.

I recommend everyone go out and buy a copy of this great book, I know I’ll be re-reading and using some of the recipes soon!

5 Bards
Profile Image for Kathryn.
1,009 reviews3 followers
June 4, 2014
Summary: Lea Michele. Written by Lea Michele.

Why I Read This: I don't normally read celebrity books because I don't have the patience for celebrity gossip. But, this book seemed different and I do love stories about how people made it on Broadway, so it seemed like a good fit.

Review: I don't think that I read anything in this book that told me anything more about who Lea Michele is than what I could read on her IMDB page. While I was reading the book, the way that she structured it struck me as shallow and self-centered; it reminded me forcibly of Gwyneth Paltrow, who, while she may be a good actress, does not merit telling people how they should eat or dress or live their lives. I don't know Lea Michele, and this was her chance to tell me who she is, but she didn't tell me much. It just left me feeling disappointed.
Profile Image for Beth.
3,099 reviews229 followers
July 24, 2014
Lea Michele is best known for her role as Rachel Berry on the wildly popular TV show Glee, but she was also an incredibly successful Broadway performer before she rose to TV stardom. In this memoir/how-to book, Lea tells her story of her rise to fame, as well as gives health, fitness, and beauty advice.

Brunette Ambition is beautifully laid out with many color photos and organized in such a way that makes it feel more like a magazine than a book. I know its unconventional and innovative approach to a memoir will appeal to teen girls, but as a thirtysomething teacher I wasn't impressed. The best parts of this book were when Lea forgot about the gimmicky layout with ridiculous diversions like recipes, beauty advice, and photographs of exercises she does to stay in shape, and just got real and told her story. She is not someone I would consider an authority on food or fitness, so adding those advice column-type diversions lessened the impact of her story. Instead, this book comes off as more novelty than substance.

What also didn't sit well with me about this book is that Lea talks a lot about staying true to who you are and not changing your appearance for the sake of Hollywood, yet the photos in this book are clearly heavily airbrushed. In addition, she comes of as a bit boastful when she talks about how to be red carpet ready, which she tries to downplay by attempting to approach her advice to the "commoner" by saying that her words hold true whether you're getting ready for the red carpet or your high school prom.

I'm not saying there aren't special moments in this book. I really do find Lea's story and her life fascinating -- I especially loved her story of when she met her hero, Barbara Streisand. But I wish she would have just focused on being real instead of distracting the reader with so much superficiality. I don't think this is a book I will be adding to my classroom library.

Originally posted on my blog, A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust.
Profile Image for Ana.
46 reviews
July 29, 2022
It’s obvious that Lea wrote this only for the money. Let me sum up my thoughts by saying:
1) this was incredibly boring
2) Lea is soooo out of touch with the real world
3) she contradicts what other ppl have called her out for so many times. It’s like she’s trying to brainwash the readers
4) jonathan groff stays iconic
5) ryan murphy is a father????? That poor child
Profile Image for Amanda Albrecht.
94 reviews1 follower
August 23, 2019
Mildly entertaining, but I was hoping to hear more about her life and relationships rather than recipes and beauty tips. There are some interesting tidbits but not enough to make it worth reading unfortunately, in my opinion.
Profile Image for Erin Shields.
13 reviews2 followers
June 2, 2020
I rarely (ever?) give books 1 star. I believe most books have some good features in them that make it 'just okay' compared to not liking it at all.
This sweet, sad book didn't have any redeeming features. Perhaps I didn't know what I was getting into. I anticipated a good ol' celeb memoir. I know 'em, I love 'em. This was only slightly that. It was also beauty tips, fashion tips, healthy eating tips, and general success platitudes that I had difficulty swallowing considering she was 26 when she wrote this book.
By the way, you can replace the word tips in my last sentence with the word lists. So many lists. Again, I love a good list. But for some reason, I hit my list max somewhere around chapter 4?
I'm also pretty sure Whole Foods sponsored this book. She mentions them by name no less than 4 times. And hints at them several others. Again, I love Whole Foods, but do I need to hear a celeb tell me to find my natural face wash in the beauty aisle of my local Whole Foods?
So many things I love, and yet this was a book that I didn't like. At. All.
Profile Image for Morgan Maddocks.
80 reviews
April 22, 2026
Hot Girl Book Club has led me places I wouldn’t normally ever go, sometimes for the best, but this time might be for the worst. Our commitment to terrible April Fool’s books is something!
Profile Image for Hannah Adkins.
84 reviews2 followers
May 27, 2014
We though that this book would be a great book for a preteen to teenage age girl, but really it wasn't quite our cup of tea. It is more of an inspiring book especially for that age group. We really just feel that this book was basically made for the whole Seventeen readers audience. There were a lot of helpful tips & recipe's in this book such as a nice hair masque recipe. We enjoyed the photo's and layout, although we didn't like how everything was kind of broken up. For example, at one point she's talking about her life as an actress, and her career and then she drops a recipe in the middle of it, but then later on she has a section of recipe's. We just thought that it was kind of a random way to throw things in, maybe to keep the attention of the younger crowd? We we're really familiar with Lea Michele's work, so it was nice to be able to read a little about her life and career. We totally recommend this for younger readers, and fans of the show Glee.

Check out our post on www.theperfectstormbffs.blogspot.com
4 reviews
December 15, 2015
I absolutely love Lea Michele, but clearly I was not the intended audience for this book. I was expecting more about her life and less about her 10 favorite movie snacks and tips on how not to get acne. She spends all of about 10 minutes on the subject of Glee and 10 minutes on Spring Awakening.
Profile Image for Bárbara.
1,231 reviews81 followers
October 14, 2017
I never considered myself much of a Glee fan- sure, I watched the show, and liked some of its aspects (disliked, criticized and made fun of many others), and I did follow it somehow religiously after I started watching it halfway through its second season.
It came to be in a funny way: a few friends of mine watched it from the start, and soon started peer pressuring me into getting into the damn thing. Being my usual petty self, I resisted.
Until one day, I had just fixed myelf lunch at my dad's after class, and I sat before the TV; kept changing channels, unsuccessful in finding anything interesting to watch, until I got to Fox and I saw that Glee was starting. Sighing, I went "what the hell" and stayed with it.
I stayed with it until the last episode of its last season and, again, while I never considered myself a huge fan of the show, it's to this day that I still miss it.
One could say it grew on me like moss, or a skin disease (if you don't get that totally-offtopic reference, get off my face).

So, anyway, after the long ass intro, let's get to the book itself!
I wanted to get my hands on it since I first heard about it: even though my relationship with Glee (and with Rachel Berry herself) was nothing if not complicated, I always held Lea in pretty high regards: what little I knew of her personal self and her professional life made her a really interesting figure to me.

I loved getting this glimpse into her life experience, and it definitely helped paint a more complete picture of who she is, but also of every factor that played a part into her getting to be that person- and moreover, how her experience is still pretty much *human*. She knows that her life differs from the life of most people, but that doesn't cause her to keep her distance from the reality of the average human, so to speak.

By sharing her own, unusual, experience, and let the reader in on some of the steps that lead her to where and who she is, Lea offers the reader some tips on how to get to know yourself and thus help you find a path to live your life to the fullest. Her advice, while (obviously) focused mainly on what helped her achieve the level of stardom she currently has, can be applied to any kind of life experience, since she herself acknowledges that not everything works the same for everyone- it all boils down to each particular path in life.

I always found Lea inspiring, and after reading this book- which shed a new light on who she really is- I can't help but be awed by how down to earth she really is. I really enjoyed this book.
Profile Image for Maan.
34 reviews
September 11, 2015
It's no surprise that I'm not just a fan of Lea, I'm a worshipper. I've been since 2009. Following everything she appears in, she does, and basically I've been following her life. But my review on the book is based solely on the contents and not the writer herself.

Brunette Ambition is a book that everyone should read. Simple as that. It offers advice and a guide on how to excel at life, relationships, friendships, and so many aspects of life.

To all the Leanatics and Gleeks, you're going to get exactly what you want as well. A never-before information on Lea's life. I enjoyed page to page, picture to picture and even footnote to footnote and it's easily my bible in life.

Thank you, Lea for such an inspiring book.
Profile Image for Ann.
18 reviews
June 2, 2014
Brunette Amibtion is a really nice biography/self-help book/cooking book/style book. I think this book was a nice read. Lea Michele describes how to live her life a.k.a. make your life better basically. But she never come off as pretentious or more over the top as usual.
The beauty and fitness tipps are really great and easy to follow.
The recipes were very helpful too. I never knew that veganism could be so easy and delicious. But I think her "little" advertising for 'Whole Foods' went a little too far...
All in all, Brunette Amition is a nice read if you like Lea Michele.
Profile Image for Christina.
76 reviews4 followers
May 27, 2014
I had waited a long time to read Brunette Ambition and I'm so happy to finally being able to say that I have. I wouldn't say I'm Lea Michele biggest fan, but I've always admired her work and especially her debut album that was released earlier this spring. You'll find everything from really great beauty tips to easy recipes. I love how diverse this book is. There's so many fun and insightful photos, and I especially loved reading the love letter to Jonathan Groff. I really recommend this book if you want to get motivated and inspired to lead a healthy and happy life.
Profile Image for Adriana.
108 reviews1 follower
April 2, 2015
Read this as part of my 2015 reading challenge: book with bad reviews.

This book has no substance and i would consider this more a cook book or how to book than a memoir. There is no real substance in the book; the only new thing I learned about Lea Michelle is that she loves to shop at whole foods. I was hoping for a little more meat.
Profile Image for Liz Goble.
70 reviews4 followers
March 6, 2016
I started listening to this audiobook on an international flight and was looking forward to hearing about her Broadway career. I got a bit of that, but was bored and irritated by the tangent she went off on about her favorite things. I could care less what brand of this and that she likes to buy. I love reading autobiographies, but this one...
Profile Image for Nathália.
372 reviews35 followers
Read
August 13, 2016
I really liked this book. The bits about make up and exercises don't interest me very much, but it's nice to read Lea's memories about it and how she values friendship and hard work. I'm really very proud of her.
Profile Image for Dallas Hunter.
26 reviews
May 22, 2014
Love this book

Love this book

I love reading this book because I am a huge fan of lea's I have been since glee started and reading this book taught me a lot more about who she is and why I am so proud to be her fan
Profile Image for Deanna.
542 reviews11 followers
May 24, 2014
I'm a fan of Lea Michelle. In Brunette Ambition, she reveals the lessons and advice that have worked for her from beauty and fashion secrets to fitness tips, and career insights.

Overall, a quick and fun read!
Profile Image for Sheida.
687 reviews112 followers
June 26, 2014
This book was packed with helpful tips about exercise and make up but it was seriously lacking Lea Michele! It felt like a compilation of make over magazine articles with the occasional tidbit about her life thrown in. It was interesting but ... not what I was expecting.
Profile Image for Grace.
793 reviews13 followers
June 2, 2018
There were parts of this book that I really enjoyed. Like reading her time on broadway and doing glee. But then there were parts that I didn't really enjoy like the food and makeup parts. It just wasn't into that. I wanted to like it but it wasn't for me.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars
Profile Image for Kerissa.
18 reviews
January 14, 2023
Things I wanted to know about: her Broadway career, Glee, her personal background, her friendships with Jonathan Groff and other Glee castmates

Things I do not look for in celebrity memoirs: hair, makeup, fashion, and overall health and wellness tips/advice. Why was that so much of the book??
Profile Image for Nisha.
439 reviews
July 1, 2014
I don't even know why I started reading this, but I wouldn't call it a book. It's more of an extended magazine. Lea Michele should stick to singing.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 443 reviews