BB FANS

Jade Goody is pictured in her wedding dress, smiling, with a big bunch of flowers and clutching her two sons on the cover of her diary documenting her battle with cancer.
Publisher HarperCollins, which released the picture, has brought forward the publication of the book to April 16.

The collection of entries, entitled Forever In My Heart, was written in the months leading up to her death on Mother's Day.

Doncasterfreepress

Jade Goody’s cancer diaries published

Barely a month after her death, Jade Goody's cancer diaries have hit the shelves.

The reality TV star, from Bermondsey, south London, made no secret of her desire to use media interest in her disease to secure a financial future for her young sons Bobby and Freddie, and royalties from the book will go to them.

The book, titled Jade: Forever In My Heart, chronicles her battle with cervical cancer, from when she was diagnosed while taking part in the Indian version of Celebrity Big Brother last August to shortly before her death.

In a foreword, her mother Jackiey Budden writes that the book bears witness to the courage and good humour with which she fought the disease.

The book ends with a wish list Goody compiled for her sons, in which she expresses her desire for them to visit a country in the developing world to make them understand how privileged their lives are. She also says she wants them to have "good jobs that pay a lot of money".

Publisher HarperCollins is to make a donation of £25,000 to Marie Curie Cancer Care.

Herald

I am really not being flippant but Jade's sons only need to visit their grandmother/great-grandparents at home for them to see how privileged they are.

A 'reality' performer to the bitter end

FOREVER IN MY HEART: THE STORY OF THE BATTLE AGAINST CANCER
BY JADE GOODY

Jade Goody was told on the phone, in August last year while appearing on the Indian version of Bog Brother, “Bigg Boss”, that she had cervical cancer. Despite operations, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, the cancer spread and a month ago, on 22 March she died, aged 27. This quickie production, covering those months, is claimed to be based on diaries that Jade Goody herself physically wrote albeit considerably worked on by other hands. In an endnote, her friend Shannon Kyle and her agent Mark Thomas are thanked “for helping to pull Jade’s diaries together”. Her editor at HarperCollins, Anna Valentine, cautiously admits: “Jade is, by her own admission, never a very articulate person – she needs quite a heavy editorial help.” These diaries certainly don’t read on the least like genuine diaries, nor anything that could ever actually have been composed by Goody herself, sick or well. They are professionally narrated throughout, so that, for example, when reporting conversations, even in extremis, “Jade Goody” always puts in varied speed descriptions, for her own remarks as well as those of others. “’Well, that’s what I want to happen’ I laughed.” “’Hold my face,’ I whispered.” Nobody does that in a genuine diary. And, despite the occasional pointed inclusion of such words as “knackered”, “gutted” and “narky”, the voice is altogether more polished than Goody’s own. There are two stories here, one of a young person dying rapidly of cancer, the other of a gross reality TV celebrity. There was never any question of separating the two, out of tact and decency, as death approached. “In some ways going public with these big events makes it easier for me to face them,” says Goody, in an entry describing a final beach holiday that also includes the statement: “I’m keeping my swimming cap on because Mark is negotiating a deal with News of the World for them to get exclusive pictures of my bald head and it’s worth a lot of money.” Without the celebrity, Jade Goody’s story is null. But that celebrity deserves attention. Michael Parkinson said Goody represented “all that’s paltry and wretched about Britain today”. Her publishers now proclaim her “a national treasure”, They’re saying the same thing, alas.
Source: David Sexton London Evening Standard

I keep saying this but that really does sum it all up.

It is tragic that Jade Goody, a woman of 27, a mother, died so horribly - just as it is for any person.

But when celebrity promotion - particularly of a person who was quite dreadful on the modern day 'reality' shows even allowing for the fact that Jade Goody had a pretty rotten life beforehand - becomes more important than life and death, you know things have went horribly wrong.

Forever in My Heart: The Story of My Battle Against Cancer by Jade Goody
The Sunday times review by Giles Hattersley
timesonline

I bought this book months ago, but am reading it now (I read 'Fighting to the End' first). Many many things in the books have moved me. Three months before her death, there were days when she was doing panto twice a day. This was between bouts of radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

People will have their own opinions on what Jade should have been doing...right throughout her life, but in my opinion, it's worth reading what she had to say.

Sometimes we think we'll have no regets about something, but with the passage of time things change. Life can be funny like that. When it comes to Jade, my only regret is that I didn't do more 'for' her when she was alive.

Thanks for the insight into this book.



Blimey, that is quite something. She was definitely a fighter, right up until the end. I don't think many people could have done what she did in her condition. I mean, getting married is very stressful when you are feeling well, let alone when you are very ill! She was very brave. I find it sad that I am having to write this in the past tense and wish that I could be saying that she is very brave, rather than she was. Rest in peace Jade.