This quick read was a pretty interesting look at Lady Gaga and how she came to the fame that she is currently experiencing. The book starts with a look at her younger years (as Stefani Germanotta), when she started life off in a well-to-do family, attending an expensive private school in New York City, and loving her music. From their, the book takes the reader through the timeline that covered her evolution into Lady Gaga, a stage persona, through hard work and dedication.

While Gaga was lucky enough to have wealthy and caring parents, it seems that her willingness to really dedicate herself to a love of music and her drive for a successful career in the music industry has played a big role. Of course, it didn't hurt that her father had some great connections in the entertainment industry, but she also made good use of networking and her friendships with people to gain access to arenas to perform and music executives. Callahan highlights how some of these friends, particularly those who no longer consider themselves to be friends of Gaga, would say that they were used and taken advantage of during Gaga's climb to stardom.

Callahan does provide a good deal of balance in her presentation. While she highlights Gaga's talent, she also highlights the former Stefani's fear of being alone and failure, her overly dramatic romantic life, the debate of whether her fashion style or even her music is original or stolen from those who went before, and her potential abuse of friends for their connections. An interesting result is a mix of praise and heavy criticism for Lady Gaga.

Callahan, who was an editor and writer at the New York Post for a number of years has also done a nice job of highlighting how the music industry works. Readers see Stefani as she kicks off her music career in some grungy clubs in New York and works her way up to being the opening act for other big name artists before getting the starring slot of her own. She is often on the edge of exhaustion as she balances the demands of touring, including interviews and performances, and record making. For the most part, her personal life seems to take a back seat.

In a way, that represents the only real disappointment I had in the book. You really get little sense of who Stefani/Gaga is in real life. Is Lady Gaga a stage persona that fades away when she is living her everyday life or is she really a representation of the real person? I would have liked to have more of that type of coverage. I think that it doesn't happen because the author does not seem to have had direct access to Gaga as she researched the book.

While there is clear use of research in the form of newspaper articles and interviews with friends (both former and current) and music pundits, there doesn't seem to be anything taken directly from the star. The result is a presentation that seems to be drawn from the concert audience rather than a real connection with the subject.

With that said, I did enjoy the book a lot. Of course, I would probably consider myself to be one of Lady Gaga's little monsters so I am probably a bit biased.