June 7, 2009

Review: Out of Sync: A Memoir by Lance Bass and Marc Eliot




From a very young age Lance Bass knew that he wanted to be a star. He sang in the church choir and later on with a group called Showstoppers. When the phone call from Justin Timberlake to join a new band called *NSYNC it changed Lance’s life forever.

Within a couple of years *NSYNC was one of the most popular bands in the world with millions of screaming fans. As great as that seemed there were many things about his stardom that were not so glowing.

With one hit after another, sold-out concert tours and merchandising the band should have been earning hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars but as naïve newcomers they signed a contract that left them earning next to nothing.

Plus to add to the stress, from the age of five Lance always felt different from other boys. He wasn’t attracted to girls. His innocent crushes were always on boys. Raised as a Christian it was hard for Lance to deal with his sexuality and then when stardom hit he had to keep it hidden even more for fear of the truth damaging the band’s reputation.

I was way too old to be one of the screaming fans Lance talks about in the book but I’ve always liked *NSYNC’s music and was very interested in his story. All the turmoil behind the scenes is very surprising and my favorite part was when Lance recounted his training as a Russian cosmonaut for a trip into space that unfortunately never happened.

This was a quick and enjoyable memoir with a few goofy photos to chuckle over. I recommend it for both fanatic and casual *NSYNC fans.

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

I was one of the fanatics, I must say. Of course, when I first heard of *NSYNC, I was 10 years old. I had no idea Lance wrote a book, so now I must check into it.

Ladytink_534 said...

I was a huge N*SYNC fan as a tween but I never did go to one of their concerts. Lance just always seemed to fade into the background in this group for me though.

Amanda said...

I'm glad you reviewed this book, because I didn't even know it was out. I think this will make a great gift for someone--I know just the former boy-band fan;-)

Amanda