Product Description

It's all here: the council estate childhood, the formation of the Spice Girls, the early months of being groomed for stardom, the subsequent global domination, Geri's departure, the marriage - and acrimonious divorce - to Jimmy Gulzar, the solo career and the leap into TV presenting. Not bad for the rebellious, mixed-up girl from Leeds who is still only in her mid-twenties.

There is surely no one alive on the planet who has not heard of Melanie B, the in-your-face loudmouth who is one of the most popular members of one of the most popular bands of all time. Now, at last, she tells her own story - funny, frank and at times frightening, but never, never dull.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #391977 in Books
• Published on: 2003-07-07
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In Catch a Fire, her frank and frothy if rather flabby autobiography, Mel B--"Scary Spice"--gives her side of the Spice Girls story. There are a few minor gibes at Mel C (and it's amusing to learn that in the fab five's early days the stick-like Posh did actually subsist on bread sticks), but otherwise fellow Spicies emerge largely unscathed. Those of a more salacious disposition will, however, be pleased to learn that former Spice Girl manager Simon Fuller and ex-husband Jim do not fare quite so well.

Mel explores her formative years in considerable detail here--perhaps in too much detail: there are, for example, more pages devoted to her parents' wallpapering techniques than to Geri Halliwell's dramatic departure from the Spice Girls. Born into a poor mixed race family in Leeds, Mel had a far from cushy childhood. Always a live wire, she admits to finding school boring but says she excelled in dance. Skipping most of her GCSEs to attend auditions, she made her professional stage debut dancing in Blackpool at 16 years of age. Crowned Miss Leeds Weekly News in 1992, she found herself on the "mad ride" to pop superstardom just two years later after being selected to join what was to become the sensational Spice Girls. "I was already living in a busy bus terminal and suddenly it became a train station and an airport all in one" she says of the headiest moments of Spice mania. As this memoir makes clear, Mel is now older, wiser and enjoying being a single mother. With a successful solo career in music, on stage and on television under her belt, she's no longer Scary but, perhaps, Cilla Black in waiting. --Travis Elborough

About the Author
Born to a working-class mixed-race family from Leeds (her mother took extra work cleaning toilets to pay for her dancing lessons), Melanie B grew up feeling different from her schoolfriends. Her hyperactive energy was channelled into drama school, and in 1994, as the story famously goes, the Spice Girls were formed. The rest is history...

Customer Reviews

Mel vs the world
This is a great little read,Mel B or Scary Spice delivers a well written honest account of her life before and after fame along with the madness of what it was like in the Spice Girls at their peak of power .

The book starts with an honest well written account of her parents get together and life as a mixed race couple in the north of england in the 1970's.When Mel comes along and starts growing up she tells us with the same honesty that pervades the book throughout what it was like to be a mixed race child growing up not being black or white.

It then goes into the one thiong Mel says saved her and ultimately put her on the road to success-dancing,the dancing lessons led to a career which ultimately led to the Spice Girls and to her doomed marriage to Jimmy Gulzar a man she realised she didnt love before they got married.

Written with candour and honesty this book is better than Geri Halliwells 1st effort and as good as Victoria Beckhams book a well worth reading book if you are interested in life behind the glitz and glamour of being a star.

satisfyingly , juicy and honest
I was amazed by Geris' first book, Victoria's was great - so I couldn't wait to see what Scary Spice had to say. I was particularly interested on her perception on Geri's departure from the Spice Girls as Victoria's & Geri's book completely conflict each other.

Catch a fire begins with her childhood, a surprisingly detailed account of how her parents got together and their life before she's even born. The book is very well blocked out - childhood, teens, early Spice Girls, world Phenomenon, marriage, motherhood and life after. You would hope so, after all, she had two other spice girls give her the perfect template!

I was surprised by her honest portrayal of her difficult relationship with her strict father and was amazed by her very calm explanation of her overdose. I think she's dealt with it by writing as though it happened to someone else. Her teenage years and her dancing are very real, you can tell she's enjoyed putting it all down on paper and her personality shines through.

It goes on to explain her first professional work as a dancer with her summer seasons in Blackpool, her dance college, her beauty queen title and then her endless auditions. Being an ex dancer I immediately absorbed all this, but anyone interested in exactly how someone goes from being a nobody to a superstar will be fascinated also. I really liked the way she was honest - even though (sometimes) it made her sound selfish or bitchy. She really doesn't give a damn if people don't like her and has a fighter's spirit. You get a real sense of who Melanie B is.

Her account on the early Spice girls was also very interesting - unlike Geri & Victoria, she admits that she didn't immediately adore the other girls; she had her reservations and slowly sussed them out. The rest of the book charts their rise of fame, already covered in the other Spice autobiographies. I'm glad she's had a chance to give her side of the story on her marriage. It's easy to say it's not very 'girl power' to stay with an oppressive man but it's more complicated then that & she explains this very well.

She covers nearly everything that has been said about her in the papers except her suspected boob job. In her acknowledgements she says to Victoria "We made it through pregnancy...and many other things". A secret reference possibly?! I was extremely surprised she left a little acknowledgement to Geri and a very nice one too. Melanie doesn't really go into how she felt when Geri left which was a shame as they were best friends. Surely she felt more then her explanation of thinking it was a joke and then getting on with organising her fathers birthday and choreography changes? That was the only disappointment. In Victoria's' book you can almost hear her seething she was so furious at 'traitor' Geri.

This book is witty and honest - I especially loved her first period story - hilarious! All in all I think this book would do very well if she just damn well promoted it!

Amazingly good!
As a former spice girls hater, I was pleasantly surprised at how good this book is - & Mel B doesn't even seem to have a ghostwriter! She is very intelligent & perceptive, writing about serious issues like the racial tensions in the 70s & the prejudices her parents encountered as a mixed-race couple. She writes very honestly about her experiences - good & bad - with men, & at some stages of the book, the accounts of her love life dilemmas were so gripping that I couldn't put the book down! She seems to practise what she preaches re: girlpower etc, as well as being a loyal friend to the other spice girls & her friends from way back. Still don't know about the other spice girls, but this book successfully killed my prejudices re: Miss Brown - a real must-read, esp. if you're a female of her age.