Facing the Music: A searingly candid memoir from S Club 7 star, Hannah Spearritt

by Hannah Spearritt

"There has been a lot of fun and adventure in my five decades on earth. There are also things from my past that I've needed to deal with. This is my story, my truth, with no holds barred - and I deserve to be able to tell it the way that I choose."

It's time to face the music - the experiences that defined me, the mistakes that shaped me and the loves that changed my life.

From S Club 7 pop star to Hollywood starlet, Hannah Spearritt has been on the stage, screen and airwaves since her teens. As one seventh of an iconic pop band, providing the soundtrack to so many childhoods, she has spent most of her life in the limelight. Now, for the first time ever, she's ready to open up in this deeply candid memoir.
This is Hannah's true story. The lessons she has learned, the loves of her life, the dangerous health struggles, the friendships and the fallouts, the joy of being a mother and the heartbreak she has overcome - Hannah holds absolutely nothing back.

Facing the Music is Hannah on her own terms - brave, unfiltered and hugely inspirational. Hannah can't wait for the world to get to know the real her.

Genres: Nonfiction, Music, Memoir, Autobiography, Biography

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 12, 2023

Reviews

[Olivier Orston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let me preface this by saying I preordered this the minute it was announced because I am a HUGE S Club 7 fan and will forever appreciate all of them, the good, the bad & the ugly.
I already had a fair amount of knowledge about the band from its inception to the present day, so she definitely would have needed to spill some major secrets for me to discover some things.
I'm also not a big reader and rarely read. I've had a big audiobook kick in recent years and listened to 50 or so biographies and have read some wonderful and some fairly poor ones. So I approached this book with a lot of leniency and a deep open-mindedness.

I'd say Hannah's is very "average" middle-of-the-road as far as biographies go. It's about 240 pages and reads super easily and quickly (it took me 3 sittings and about 3.5 hours to get through it all) The initial 80 pages are all about her life pre-S Club and can be resumed in a few lines. "She had a lovely house. She had lovely parents. She wanted to be an actress. Auditioned a lot. got parts. Acted. Met an actress friend at an audition. Kept auditioning with her. Kept acting with her. Everybody was happy and smiley"
I was disappointed at how bland it was. That's definitely not worth spending your money on buying this book.
Then she gets to the S Club audition, her time in the band, and her acting gigs after. This was definitely the more interesting part of the book but the main thing that struck me from the book was: It's VERY surface level to me. She tells stories but they're all so short and vague. Some of them have a reasonable amount of emphasis but they feel very fluff pieces. I would have liked to know more about her emotions, her thoughts, her feelings, what came after, the follow-ups, and the fall-through. This book makes her come off as someone who has been happy her entire life, didn't struggle much, is all sunshine and rainbows most of the time and it's kind of...boring? I don't wish her any arm or issue but it just doesn't make for an interesting biography.
Even her later-in-life struggles with her health are peppered with her boyfriend being incredibly supportive and still getting the acting gigs she dreamed of so, good for her?

I don't think I'd truly recommend it, unfortunately. If you're a big S Club fan like me, go ahead. It's fun to hear a little bit more about the band but there's no big reveal, nothing shocking, surprising, or raw and real. The band had fun, the shows were great, everybody was happy, the band was always nice and supportive, her life was one big party. When Paul got sick of it, he left. When she got sick of it, the band split.
The end.
PS: All the other comments about the editing are so true. My English isn't perfect and my spelling isn't so great and I still caught a lot of typos in the book. Words being repeated twice, wrong determinant, sentences are missing words making no sense. It's...impressive.

[David Mackenzie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow what a terribly edited book. Seriously who proof read this? I have never read a book with this many errors in it or as disjointed as this book it’s all over the place. The first half is by a long way the better half and is probably because the second half deals with the very recent past and it might just be to raw for true insight or perspective.

Still exceptionally brave of Hannah to put here self out there like this. Enjoyable but not ground breaking

[charlie 🦕 · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a bit of background, Hannah was always my favourite member of S Club and I grew up loving her in Primeval too so I was very excited to read this book and even though I have a lot of negative opinions with it I don’t regret reading it and I did enjoy it and I do feel like i’ve learned a little more about S Club. It’s the only time i’ve ever read a whole book in one sitting so clearly it’s done something right. It’s been mentioned by others but this has a lot of general mistakes from a paragraph being placed twice, a few spaces missing, sentences not starting with a capital letter and a weird instance of referring to herself in the third person toward the end? It’s clear this was being written before Paul’s death and she had to go in and add some extra details afterward but this was done pretty lazily in my opinion. There’s a lot of jumping around which does usually happen with autobiographies but this could’ve been very easily fixed with an edit. How positive she thinks of the band changes between these chapters and it’s really obvious to read. I was happy to discover that she doesn’t really have anything bad to say about any of the members and defends them on a few occasions although I do think she might have been asked to remove some things. I was sad they weren’t mentioned in the acknowledgements. The first half of the book, besides the interludes about Paul’s passing, is an interesting read about her career with S Club and later acting experiences. I was disappointed she didn’t go into more detail about Seed of Chucky (although there probably just isn’t anything to talk about) or Primeval. I was glad it did have a whole chapter but that was mostly about the initial audition process and her relationship with Andrew Lee Potts and leaving it i’m not even sure what she thought of the whole series or if she’d be up for a revival. The latter half of the book just reads like one long statement about all the tabloid drama surrounding her over the last few years which was fine but just felt out of place with the rest of the book. None of this is going to be relevant in ten years. It also just makes me feel like she’s generally too young to have written this when so many of the events happened as recent as a few months ago that it’s impossible to look back on them when it’s still happening. A big message I took from this is that after the band most of them were lost career and relationship wise so the ending with her moving to Costa Rica to start a wellness retreat just seems like more proof of that, but i’ll be very happy for her if it goes well (just seems a little cult-y from the way it’s described). The highlight of this for me was discovering just how her and Paul initially got together in relation to where the band was at the time, those were some really wonderful stories that made this worth it for me. The ending chapters just going over everything happening in her life you can clearly see why she just wouldn’t have the time nor headspace for an s club reunion and I think the pure fact that she doesn’t enjoy singing and dancing that much and was mainly interested in acting (something a tour with new music wouldn’t offer) you can see why she wouldn’t want to do it.

btw what is up with the audio version of this? it was pushed back a month after the books release so now i’ve already finished the book which I probably won’t reread but still have the audio on preorder because they didn’t release it in time.

all in all it’s an interesting read but if you’re after secrets on s club it isn’t worth reading outside of the few chapters on them.

[Victoria White · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is so poorly written. It is absolutely full of typo and punctuation errors but even without the errors, it is a very poor book.
I am a big S Club fan and was so excited to read this. I wanted to know about the band, their experiences and the friendships between them. There is one chapter on S Club with very, very little detail. It is brushed over and there are no pictures of them, which I found very strange. The detail and explanation for things is lacking throughout with phrases like ‘the PE teacher was hot’. There is no substance or depth and I feel like she wasn’t ready to write it. There is a lot she needed to work through so she could write more deeply and openly about her experiences. It jumped around from subject to subject with phrases like ‘worst nightmare of my life’ with no real explanation or detail. I don’t know how she felt about any of it; it was just like retelling a list of events.
The phrasing was poor and I found myself asking after words like ‘lovely’ whether that was the most interesting thing she could tell us?
The letter from her step daughter was very random and isolated. If she was going to do this, she needed to do it throughout with other people she was close to as well.
I hate writing bad reviews but I was so excited to read this and was very disappointed.

[Stephen Quinn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book and well done to Hannah on putting this out there. Lost a star because there were a fair few typos, errors, and very simple grammatical mistakes that should have been picked up by the publishers. Not sure if that’s something to do with just the e-book version I bought, but it was annoying.

[Molly Dowrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Facing the Music gives a really awesome insight into Hannah and S Club 7’s meteoric rise to fame - and chronicles many of the challenges Hannah has faced in her personal life that I can’t imagine many fans would know much about before reading.

Discussions of Hannah’s friendships and relationships (what S Club fan wouldn’t want to know the ins and outs of her relationship with the late Paul Cattermole?!) were eye-opening, amusing and, at times, a little bonkers!

And reading Hannah’s own accounts of how she spent much of her formative teenage years in houseshares in London while working in professional theatre shows was brilliant and laugh-out-loud hilarious at times. I particularly loved reading about her escapades with long-term friend and fellow actress, Sheridan Smith.

Hannah’s willingness to open up about her huge health issues - especially her immuno-condition which came about after her breast implant surgery - is remarkable and should also be commended. I really feel reading about her challenges will help countless other women who experienced similar side effects-turned-serious illness. I think it’s amazing Hannah has really opened up about the truly ugly side to her medical condition and drawn-out recovery process, and it’s affect on her mental health and her relationship with her partner, Adam. Just amazing.

I also thought Hannah’s recounts of her two devastating miscarriages were POWERFUL. It’s really amazing, and brave, to talk about this in such a frank and honest way - and reading about her daughter’s serious injury after a horrendous accident at home was heartbreaking and tough to read about. It’s incredible that Hannah has been able to share this horrific experience with fans, for the first time. I really hope her daughter has recovered now and that her family receive the closure they deserve after the awful allegations…

I‘ve been so excited to read this autobiography ever since I got it several weeks ago and finally sat down to start reading it on New Years Day 2024. I devoured it in three evenings and don’t remember when I last read a book that fast.

Whilst so much of the autobiography should be commended, I can’t help but feel that Hannah comes across as bitter, on more than one occasion. She’s clearly been through horrendous situation after horrendous situation, with her health, her daughter’s accident, and challenges in her relationship with her partner and stepdaughter; but she also comes across as bitter about fame and the success of her fellow S Clubbers - especially for being seen as the young, tomboy to Rachel Stevens’’sexy one’ unofficial role.

I can imagine it was very therapeutic to be able to pen a tribute to the late Paul Cattermole and reading about how Hannah and Paul got together - and their mischief on a motorbike - put a smile on my face. But Facing The Music jumps around a lot and doesn’t always flow. Paul seems to appear in a story and then he fades out- only to pop up again when Hannah appears to have moved on to a new topic.

I think more of an obvious chronological order, or for chapters to be better organised by theme, would have been more successful.

Plus, there appears to be SEVERAL editing errors in the text, including a repeated line and multiple missing words, which can be distracting and was quite disappointing for what should be a top-quality autobiography from a leading publisher.

[Liam Crook-Chambers · Rating 3 out of 5]

Being an S Club 7 fan back in the day and seeing this book for a couple of quid in a bookshop, I thought I’d try it. Unless you were / still are an S Club fan you’re not going to get much out of this, however it was interesting to hear some of her stories and anecdotes. As mentioned in other reviews, there are a few errors which should have been picked up on in the editing process - mainly punctuation or missing words but also a bizarre moment near the end where she suddenly refers to herself in the third person. Glad to have read it but will be very unlikely to read again.

[David · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the worst books I��ve ever read.

[Sophie Harper · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it

[Pippa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I love an autobiography of a celebrity or person of interest, but this may have been the poorest one I’ve read. There was no depth to her stories and it felt like one long ramble. I didn’t understand how there could be so little mention of S Club - not even a picture! Such a shame!

[abi · Rating 1 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting any massive scandals here but the writing is so surface level that I felt like I was reading the most basic summary of someone's life
- the five page letter from her 'stepdaughter' felt completely fake
- why is she so bothered about a fake story running in the sun (fuck the sun, awful rag) about her being homeless that she discusses it in multiple chapters??
- there's such a lack of emotion and detail in this book

genuinely, I have no idea why this was even published 🤷 sometimes people don't really have anything to say and that's okay

[Michelle Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

What happened to the rest of the book this barely skims over everything I expect a lot more from an autobiography

[Kimberly Ann · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars, which I will round down to 2 stars overall.

I will start by saying that, while I did enjoy some S Club 7 songs during high school, I was never a big fan. I liked a lot of other English bands more (5ive, Westlife, Blue, etc). But, when I saw that Hannah had written her memoirs, I was interested because I had Claire's book from Steps and I thought it might be similar. Word to the wise, read Claire's, not Hannah's.

When I first started this book, I was enjoying it. I find it interesting to read about celebrities beginnings, and how they got into the entertainment industry. Hannah's spoke much about her early childhood, family life, getting into theatre, etc. While some of it was repetitive, it was still interesting.

Moving on, we get to her audition for S Club 7 at sixteen years old, and then being taken in as a member of the band. This is where I felt like the book too a downward spiral. If you are looking for information on S Club 7, you won't find much here. In fact, you are reading between the lines a lot. Most of the S Club 7 years was Hannah saying "no drama". They went to Miami to film the first TV series (I never watched any of the TV series or movies), and she would say something like, "we lived in American apartments, and had no drama". She says "no drama" so much that, as the reader, you are forced to think that she is just saying that to say it, and does not mean it. Overall, the whole chapters during her S Club 7 time were very glossed over. Lots about her relationship with Paul, which I did not know about until he passed away last year, but nothing about the band. Nothing about the recording process. Nothing about the touring process. It was like she auditioned for the band, was accepted, filmed the Miami show, did Party in the Park, and then it was over. Absolutely nothing about that time.

So then you move onto Hannah's life post S Club 7. A bit more interested, especially about her time on Primeval mostly because she was dating her costar, and some other things she did. But nothing in the terms of stories. The acting career felt very glossed over as well. If you don't want the public to know about your life, please don't write a book about it.

Following this, I found that the book just got weird and out of order. She talked about getting back together with Paul during the 2015 S Club 7 reunion, while saying she broke Adam's heart. Who is Adam?! You read in the foreword that Adam is her current partner but is this the same guy? Then you get into her breast implant issues (developed an autoimmune condition following the surgery), which Adam supported her through, but then she says she left him for Paul. I was so confused. Was she doing the reunion during the breast implants, or was it right after she got them. Maybe I would know those answers if I followed Hannah's life in the media but, I didn't. I kind of expected to get that info here but it was not there. The confusion and disorganization went on from there. You read about her miscarriages but then find out later that this was after the birth of her two daughters, not before. Confused because nothing past the breast implants was in order.

Overall, 2.5 stars because of the disorganization, lack of information, and the very poor editing. Like other people have mentioned, the editing was terrible. Run on sentences, misspelled words, combined words without spaces, I could go on. Was this book rushed to print? I am kind of upset that I spent money on it but at least I got it on sale on Bookoutlet Canada.

[Toby Sutton-Long · Rating 3 out of 5]

Now when I put this autobiography on my Christmas list and subsequently was happy to receive it, people may have been surprised as I was. I've never seen Primeval, I'm not at all familiar with S Club 7 and I don't follow celebrity gossip. So why did I want to read the story of Hannah Spearitt? Because I've come across her quite a few times within the comic con circuit over the years, and once upon a time 14 year old me had a photo with her because I thought she was frightfully pretty (which she is). She's a very lovely lady!

Anyway this is a good memoir, it feels personable and you get such a deep feel for Spearitt as a person. Because I knew very little about her life most of what I read quite surprised me as I had no idea what she's gone through. Overall quite emotional. However this is only three stars in my view because it's very short and several parts that I'd have loved to have read more detail of are somewhat rushed through.

I also thought that having an extensive list of helplines and charity details that support people with the challenges mentioned in the book at the end was a very nice touch.

[Chelsea May xxx · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has loads of grammar errors and paragraphs added twice and spelling mistakes and some sentences didn’t have a capital letter and they were loads of punctuation mistakes though out this whole book it feels like it wasn’t proof read before been published for readers to read sadly. Also Hannah spoke about herself as the 3rd person sometimes which really confused me as this book is all about her. The 1st of the book was the better half for me as we found out a lot about Hannah her childhood,friendships and how she become to be part of S club 7 and I really enjoyed reading about her and Paul’s friendship and relationship and the chapter about Paul was so raw and so honest it broke my heart reading that part. What I found weird was there are no pictures from her S club 7 days in this book just pictures of Paul and If the band meant that much to you surely they would be pictures in the book. The 2nd half of the book was a lot harder to read and get my head around as it was about her life currently. There was also a massive chapter a her boob job which I found very repetitive and boring. Xxx

[Stacey · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️ | 5 stars


It’s difficult to rate a book from someone who is writing about their own life and experiences they’ve had however as others have pointed out there were numerous typos (missing spaces, spelling,etc) that really should have been picked up in editing, especially the very bizarre third person narrative towards the end.

As a child I was a huge S Club 7 fan and that is likely the only reason I picked up this book to read so it was great to get an insight into Hannah’s experience in the band and dynamics etc there. I was surprised to read some of the roles she had and how she got her start however being quite young when S Club 7 split I probably wasn’t watching those sorts of things.

Really sad to read that she was so unwell for so long and glad that she has raised awareness around breast implants and the dangers of them and will now be watching her documentary.

[Tasha · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters were good but I must say it went downhill from there, I can't help thinking this was incredibly rushed from there onwards. It had no sense of order and there were so many mistakes. I feel sorry for Hannah because this is down to the publishers. Reading it I couldn't help but think they just didn't care. There were some sentences you couldn't make head nor tail of because of typos. There were even duplications of sentences and clearly sentences missing. They have really let her down which is such a shame. I can only hope she gets another chance in the future to do this properly with the right guidance. Thanks for sharing Hannah I did enjoy it despite the poor quality of editing.

[Sarah Broadbridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

I persevered and read it but was really disappointed.

As a big S Club 7 fan, I was hoping this was going to be more insightful into the S Club days. Instead, it was a lot of bitterness and she glossed over her 5 years in S Club 7.
She’s clearly struggled with a lot in her life since her S Club days. The lack of chronology in this made this is a really disjointed read. The chapter titles didn’t really mean anything and, within each chapter, it just jumped about a lot between things.

Also, the hardback version has numerous editing mistakes - some sentences just did not make sense! The second half of the book was especially bad…

[Louise Batchelor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hannah was always my fave in the band so i was always going to read it. There were a lot of typos and other errors but i looked past that as it looks like she had to delete a lot from the book. I would have loved to have heard more in depth at some of the stories but she seems like a very private person. Her health battles really did make me feel for her. I would recommend this to read, but if you're looking for her to ho into complete detail of her life in the band you won't find it as you only get part of it

[Melanie Morgan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m such a giant S Club fan I had to buy this when I was over in the UK from Australia purely to see their Good Times tour. I love Hannah, and enjoyed learning more about her time in S club and was sad to read about all her health issues. Shes very brave and tough to have overcome what she has and to also advocate for others! Have to agree with others that this book has many many typos, grammar and just general mistakes, unsure how it wasn’t picked up but nevertheless a great read for any S club fans! Thanks Hannah xx

[Hannah Williamson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hannah’s book was an interesting read where I was learning more about how she started out and things that have happened to her over time. Being a huge fan of S Club 7 and Hannah being one of my favourites I instantly knew I had to get the book and read it.

There was a few editing errors throughout that book which I had spotted but was definitely worth a read to learn further about Hannah’s life and the struggles she has gone through.

Would recommend reading if you are a fan of S Club and want to know further about Hannah’s life.

[Hanna *Middle School Librarian* · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a HUGE S Club 7 fan as a child. Hannah was my favorite by far.
My review is not an indictment of her life. She seems lovely. But this was so poorly written. I was shocked to see it had been edited with an editor. It seems like a rough draft. Grammar mistakes, spelling mistakes, at one point an entire sentence was repeated mid sentence. The story started as linear, but then it kept circling back, repeating, jumping forward, etc. Do not recommend at all.
Also, 'searingly candid' is quite the claim. It was not.

[Alexis Taft · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read Hannah is open on all she talks about but she only skimmed over the S Club days and the other members. I'm surprised this book was allowed to go to print as it is so full of typos, mistakes and errors from start to finish. She talks about poor health so i do hope she was not pushed or rushed into releasing this to soon.

[David Cowpar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hannah’s story, in Hannah’s words. A beautiful story from a beautiful soul. I really wish her well in her future endeavours she deserves such lovely things.
The very least this does is explain her absence from S Club these days. But it does so much more. I want to go to a carribean island and set up a community there! 😂 legend idea.

[Colin Rothamel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hannah was always my favorite member of S Club 7 so I was keen to give this a read. I have to agree with the other reviews in that the details revealed here feel somewhat surface level and Hannah writes in broad strokes. A bit of a letdown, but I did learn a few interesting tidbits (mostly related to her early theater days + audition process for S Club).

[Clare · Rating 1 out of 5]

Truly awful. Edited poorly. The first 100 pages are true waffle and the S Club 7 sections which were, in theory, the most interesting part were so surface level there was little point in reading it. No depth whatsoever to what she was saying. It felt as though this was transcribed via dictaphone. I continued reading to see how bad it got.

[the_sugercoatedlibrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really did enjoy this book 📖 got know more hannah from s club 7. The fact she was speaking truth & how she felt. Hannah will be always a member of #SCULB7. No, what people say. Go Hannah, go in the future. ❤️ 🎶

[Ben Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and surprisingly bleak in places. I'd have welcomed more of the the music side although thats not really the point of the book and all that is covered in Reach For the Stars. I really liked all the stage stuff pre-S Club. A complex life bravely shared.

[Swee · Rating 5 out of 5]

really felt for Hannah as she has been through a lot and bringing us up to date with her life... her relationship with former S Club band mate Paul Cattermole and how a bodge Breast augmentation was nearly the end of her.

[Gemma · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a mess. I’m not saying that biographies should be chronological however some structure and order would be nice. This jumps around continuously and I was left scratching my head about who she was talking about. This book feels like someone has transcribed a WhatsApp voice note