It’s an untouchable time of your week.
No matter what, watching your favorite show is solidly on your schedule. Your computer’s off. Your phone’s on silent and the TV’s warm. Even if it means hours of binging, you can’t resist being in the know – but what don’t you know? “Citizen Kim” by Jonathan Van Meter lets you peek behind the scenes.
For most of her life, Kim Kardashian has been in the limelight.
When she was just an infant, her parents’ second daughter, strangers would exclaim what a remarkably beautiful child she was. Others said she was “stunning.” At age 13, she had the curves of someone years older, and she wasn’t afraid to show them off.
By spring of 1994, she already had her iconic look set.
Even then, says Van Meter, Kardashian seemed intuitively knowledgeable about what it would take to achieve stardom. She recognized that sharing everything she did was key to becoming famous, but that being savvy about doing so online was also important. She understood what was then a quickly-evolving, generationally-steered pop culture – an awareness driven, he believes, by financial problems, trauma, and emotions that trailed her parents’ divorce.
That, says Van Meter, truly was what primarily made Kim Kardashian. Her mother’s friendship with Nicole Brown Simpson, Brown Simpson’s murder, and the “Trial of the Century” likely contributed to who Kardsahian became. Her mother’s marriage to Bruce Jenner (now Caitlyn Jenner) also affected who she is now.
Today, thrice divorced, Kardashian is a wealthy woman, owner of two hugely successful businesses and the creator of several more. She has overcome the scandal of a sex tape, the hurt of family drama, and the turmoil of life with Ye. Says Van Meter, she most definitely is not just “famous for being famous.”
Quick: move your eyes left. Look right. Up, down. If you’re not a fan, those exercises will keep your eyeballs limber, and in rolling shape.
If you’re not a Kardashian fan, in other words, you can stop reading now.
But will this book satisfy a fan?
Hard to say, because more than half of “Citizen Kim” is about everybody else in Kardashian’s sphere: her mother, father, grandmother, siblings, husbands, her mother’s friends, Kardashian’s friends, and Caitlyn Jenner (whom author Jonathan Van Meter refers to as “Bruce” when chronologically appropriate, as Jenner prefers). Van Meter also goes into detail about a three-decade-old murder that’s suddenly back in the news; fashion, and other odds and ends that are good to know and that may’ve affected his title subject, but that are points belabored.
And yet, avid and deeply interested readers will appreciate the dish about Kim Kardsahian, her life, and her life-strategy, things they’ll be eager for. There’s plenty here to satisfy, in the kind of tell-much that makes fans drool.
If that’s you, and you just can’t get enough Kardsahian, “Citizen Kim” absolutely belongs on your sofa, right next to your remote and your bingeing schedule. If you’re absolutely not a fan, though, you might find this book all but untouchable.
“Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future” by Jonathan Van Meter
c.2026, Viking $32. 352 pages.
This story is brought to you by Rosedale Health and Wellness and Dudley’s Place.
