Johannes is a beautiful person, and is one of the (many) reasons I love Strictly.
At 250ish pages this is a short autobiography for someone with such a big story, compared to others I have read who have used a lot more pages to say an awful lot less…
South Africa is such a complex country, and the UK’s relationship with it, even in the great scheme of Empire, stands out as poor. That Royal wives seem to be falling over themselves to shake Jojo’s hand is something to celebrate, but I hope they do it with a pinch of context.
One of the things that Johannes’ story tells us is you need a big dose of luck to make it to the top, but if your parents have money the chances of you being in the right place at the right time when that luck comes along are massively improved.
Having read John Whaite’s account of their partnership it was clearly interesting to read the other side – but John actually said very little, and Johannes says even less – I don’t object to that, we have no right to a show and tell on things that are between two people even in this age of the goldfish ball of social media.
This is a book that ticked all the boxes, and I am sure has been a success, but I have this feeling that with a better ghost writer we might have got a book that really engaged with the complexity of Johnannes’ story, a book that might not have sold as many copies but might have changed the world.
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