Life is Just What You Make It: My Story So Far

""Change your name. Your name is poison,"" advised Michael Jackson when Donny Osmond was trying to forge an adult singing career in 1983. Osmond's name was not always a punch line. At the age of five, he joined his four older siblings as the pop group The Osmonds. Barely in his teens, Donny became a solo artist, cutting more than 20 gold records by the mid-'70s. From 1976 to 1979, he and his sister starred in the popular, campy TV variety series The Donny & Marie Show. But his toothy, wholesome image and his strict religious beliefs as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were at odds with the harder-edged rock of that era. This, and the fact that the Osmond entertainment empire was located in distant Utah, fostered the impression that he was a has-been by age 22. Osmond's emotionally raw and startlingly candid autobiography is a difficult tightrope act: a triumph-of-the-spirit tale that avoids homilies or bitterness. Taught to ignore his own feelings in favor of the interest of the family, Osmond was a child star under enormous pressure to be ""perfect."" His debilitating panic attacks (which plagued his five-year run in Andrew Lloyd Webber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat) and his efforts to find emotional peace through psychotherapy are recounted with bracing honesty, and he provides keen insights into the music business, especially the behind-the-scenes politics that govern radio airtime. By the end of his story (so far), Osmond's long-sought inner peace includes the understanding that he can't control how he is perceived by the public. Writing this book may have been the best form of therapy for Osmond, but it will prove a revelation to readers as well. (June)