Confessions of a Video Vixen - Karrine Steffans

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Karrine Steffans, a name more widely associated with as a video model, extends her knowledge in her memoir from personal experience, entailing warnings and looking for more than just a message to her readers. Confessions of a Video Vixen is a fairly easy and entertaining read, with easy flowing words and is written to shed light on hidden agendas within the hip hop community, and captured insightful inspiration.
Shortly after writing her first memoir, it was proclaimed a New York Times Best Seller peaking at number five. The book itself consists of about 202 pages, not including the epilogue and bonus features. Overall I found the pages to turn easily as I couldn’t take my attention away from her writing. Instead of telling a story and moving on, she referred back to instances as to not confuse her readers, but remind them of what she’s stated before and how it links together with more gnawing details. Her sentences flowed nicely, with an intellectual and simple writing style coming together as one.
The author let her readers in on a very personal part of her life leaving little to the imagination. She wrote about her experiences in the Hip Hop video industry and the hidden agendas that came along with it, such as the prostitution, drugs, and being boozed up daily for acceptance by those surrounding her, but often found herself learning they didn’t really care. Karrine states that “My body went into convulsions three, four more times, each time landing me on the cold hard tile. No one was there for me. I was going to die alone” (Steffans). Steffans includes raunchy detail concerning those who took advantage of her, ranging from DMX, to JaRule, Bobby Brown, Vin Diesel, to those of Bow Wow, and Usher.
Karrine gave aspects of her personal life to give insight to those who didn’t know better, which makes for a great inspirational message. The authors’ technique of using personal experience to back up her claims makes this book more credible and allows readers to understand the emotion emitted into the text. She includes an 8 page section of pictures for the public to feel a connection. The authors’ tactic of inspiration flows throughout the text and is observable to individuals in her situation.
The author clearly makes her point throughout the text of Confessions of a Video Vixen. This memoir is intended for the general audience for the fact that anyone could pick it up and read it with complete interest or complete disgust. Every word in the text is coming from the primary source in a non-fiction category, leaving no room for error or rumors.
In conclusion, I believe Steffans is a great writer and really knows how to get her point across. Her writing style is cocky yet inspirational, which tends to captivate curiosity from readers. Based on the criteria, this text was exceptionally understandable and relatable. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading detailed memoirs.