If Only

the long version

The superficiality of this book cannot be overstated. Still, it is a useful pop-cultural document. Halliwell was Ginger Spice in the Spice Girls, the Monkees-/Bay City Rollers-/Sex Pistols-style prefab band that rode a carefully crafted "girl power" media assault to fame and fortune. She treats us to page after page of growing up as the perky, undersized issue of a moderately ne er-do-well Swedish dad from Liverpool and a feisty, Spanish, Catholic-cum-Jehovah s Witness mom. She pays special atte