 William Leith of the London Evening Standard was impressed with the biography , and noted that " the thing about Madonna is not in her sensationalism , it ’ s in the fact that how much humane she appeared in the book . Taraborrelli does a fine job of capturing the world 's most famous courtesan , in the most infamous way " , and John Smyntek from Knight Ridder thought " Taraborrelli [ is ] retelling all [ the known facts about Madonna ] and more . After all , in those 10 years , the Great Woman has had two children , wed and maintained her image as a major pain in the keister . He does a great job of bringing forth these unknown facts . " Ward Triplet of the Kansas City Star felt that although the book is " an eerie , but compelling day by day account of Madonna , and how she became who she is , sometimes Taraborrelli feels like revealing more about his process of writing than his subject " , and Ann O ' Neil in the Los Angeles Times complimented the book for being " different " from the " regular dirt written everyday about Madonna . " 
