Good morning, blog watchers. It’s time for another book review. I have just finished reading yet another sad story about a young person who was preyed upon by the TLC television network. I am reviewing Collin Gosselin’s brand new book, In the Shadow of Eight: Surviving the Reality of My Childhood. Gosselin’s book was released on October 13th of this year. It was written with assistance from ghost writer, Allie Kingsley Baker.

Who is Collin Gosselin, and why did he write a book?

Collin Gosselin grew up on the TLC reality show, Jon & Kate Plus 8, and later, Kate Plus 8. His parents, Jon and Kate Gosselin, are the parents of twin girls, Cara and Mady, and sextuplets: Aaden, Alexis, Leah, Hannah, Joel, and Collin. Their famous reality show ran on the TLC network from April 10, 2007 until July 24, 2017.

Jon and Kate famously divorced in 2009. It was reported back then that Jon Gosselin disliked being on reality television, and he and Kate had marital issues that made their split necessary. Kate continued the show from 2010, seemingly loving the limelight.

Although Jon Gosselin didn’t like being a TLC commodity and left the network, the children’s participation was required for the show’s success. Soon, Jon was shut out of his children’s lives. Like everyone else in America, he got to see his own children grow up on TV.

Like his father, Collin Gosselin also hated being a reality TV star. But unlike his father, Collin didn’t have a choice to leave the limelight. According to his book, In the Shadow of Eight, Collin was forced to help support his mother’s celebrity ambitions. When he didn’t cooperate, Kate made him pay dearly… until he was eventually shut out of the family and sent away to a psychiatric facility called Fairmount Hospital.

It took the help of a fellow inmate/patient at Fairmount to help Collin escape his mother’s toxic clutches and launch his own life. But even to this day, Kate continues to interfere in Collin’s life in a negative way. And, to this day, Collin remains shut off from most of his siblings, the lone exception being fellow septuplet, Hannah, who also left their mother’s custody.

Collin Gosselin and his siblings are now adults. He is now in college, studying finance, although he had wanted to join the Marines. Thanks to his mother’s insistence that Collin was “mentally ill”, the resulting diagnoses, and his history in psychiatric facilities, that dream of being a Marine seems to have been permanently thwarted. But at least Collin still has a story to share.

My thoughts

A few years ago, I read and reviewed Jill Duggar Dillard’s book, Counting the Cost. Dillard is the second eldest daughter of Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, who starred on TLC’s show, 19 Kids and Counting.

In her book, Dillard detailed how her father, Jim Bob Duggar, made millions of dollars on the supersized family’s reality TV show. On the show, the Duggars were portrayed to be a close and loving Christian family. Jill’s book shed some light on the actual truth about what it was like to grow up on reality TV. It came at a great personal cost to her, her siblings, and her relationships with her family.

As a result of Jill’s decision to “spill the tea”, she became ostracized from her family. Jill went from being a “golden child”, to being an outcast. She and her husband, Derick, have now struck out on their own. They have three sons, and Derick, who is an attorney, just joined the Marine Corps so that he can work as a JAG officer. They now live in Virginia on Quantico, a Marine base Bill and I know well.

By now, you might be wondering… What does Jill Dillard have to do with today’s topic? Well… her experience is just one of many young people’s who have had any dealings with the TLC network. In the early 2000s, reality television shows, especially those involving large, unique families like the Duggars and the Gosselins, were all the rage.

The parents who allowed television producers to showcase their families on reality TV made a lot of money and became famous. But their children had no say in the arrangement and did not have the legal protections afforded to child actors.

Consequently, young people like Jill and Collin basically ended up working for free, and were treated like commodities, instead of human beings. They sacrificed their childhoods and basic privacy so that their parents could be rich and famous. And, at least in the cases of the Duggars and the Gosselins, there was child abuse involved.

While both Jill and Collin have managed to move on from their time as reality TV stars, they have both had a tough go of breaking free of that world. Both had their educations interrupted or curtailed, which made launching into adulthood more difficult.

In Jill’s case, it was due to her parents’ insistence on “homeschooling”, and not encouraging higher education. In Collin’s case, it was due to his mother’s decision to have him locked up in a psych ward from the time he was twelve years old. Jon Gosselin, as an alienated father who no longer had the financial power, legal resources, and network backing that Kate had, wound up basically helpless to protect his kids. Meanwhile, because he had been on the show, Jon’s personal life became tabloid fodder.

Although I did watch the Duggars, back in the day, I never watched the Gosselins on TLC. As a childless person, their show never really appealed to me. I was interested in the Duggars only because I find weird religions interesting. I do consider fundie Christianity to be “weird”, especially because it’s often intertwined with greed and abuse. As someone with a background in social work and public health, those are topics that interest me.

Now that I’ve read Collin Gosselin’s book, I am slightly more interested in what was shown on Jon & Kate Plus 8, although I doubt I’ll seek out any episodes or clips from that show. What I’ve seen of Kate Gosselin is not appealing to me. In my opinion, she seems very narcissistic and controlling. My own husband was alienated from his children, so I don’t enjoy watching parents who perpetuate that kind of abuse. I also don’t like giving supply to narcissists, which is ultimately what they all crave.

I do believe Collin’s story, and I think In the Shadow of Eight is decently written. I saw one review on Amazon that mentioned the book might have been partially written by AI. I did not get that sense myself, although I will admit that I don’t have that much experience with reading things that were written with the help of AI. Gosselin did have a ghostwriter, so I’m not sure why he’d be using AI, if there was a professional writer involved with this project.

I do feel like this book is somewhat less detailed than it should be. Granted, Collin is only 22 years old, at this writing, and still has his whole life ahead of him. He’s also not a professional author. I’m sure some of his memories are so painful that he didn’t want to write about them. But I felt like some of the situations he wrote about were a bit glossed over, given the number of situations he endured.

On the other hand, Collin Gosselin has already given up a lot of his privacy, no thanks to his parents, who put him on a reality show when he was just a toddler. Had he not been on the reality show, perhaps he would have been able to fulfill his dreams of being a Marine. Maybe he and his mother would have still had problems. There might have still been significant abuse, as well. Collin did write that CPS (or CYS) did visit and investigate his mother several times.

Collin writes that he doesn’t think his mother likes him, which is something I can relate to. I never thought my father liked me very much, either. But, below is a passage that really kind of chilled me. Gosselin had read a book about his mother that was written by a journalist named Hoffman. Hoffman claimed that he’d gone through Kate’s trash and compiled his unauthorized book about her motivations:

Collin Gosselin admits that Hoffman seems kind of shady, but some of his book rang true to him and shed some light on why Kate seemed to be fixated so much on breaking his spirit. Hoffman also wrote about Kate’s father, who was apparently very strict and kind of mean.

According to Hoffman, Kate had once said that she was afraid she was acting like her father, who had been “tough” on her. She also claimed that Collin was “angry” and “violent”. If that’s true, perhaps she was projecting her memories of her father on her son. Heaven knows, that can happen. It’s happened to me, and it’s also happened to my husband, Bill.

Overall

Personally, I liked Collin Gosselin’s book, In the Shadow of Eight, and consider it worthwhile reading for me. I’m interested in true stories, and I find celebrities interesting, even when they’re just reality TV stars.

Do I think it’s five star Pulitzer Prize winning material? No, of course not. But it’s reasonably well-written and interesting, and it does highlight the pitfalls of putting one’s children on the Internet or television for public consumption.

My heart goes out to Collin, Hannah, and their father, Jon. I also empatize with the other Gosselin children, who have also been caught up in this fiasco. It can’t be easy for them to have to choose between their mother and two of their siblings and father. I have watched my husband reconnect with one of his two daughters, who were forcibly alienated from him when they were children. Based on the stories we’ve heard over the past few years, I know it wasn’t easy for the kids, either.

And, as someone who has witnessed the aftereffects of a divorce, I also have great empathy for Jon’s ex girlfriend, Colleen, who was there to help Collin once Jon sprang him from the psych ward. Although she and Jon broke up, Collin remains close to Colleen, which is a testament to her devotion and kindness to him when he needed her. Kudos to Collin for recognizing Colleen’s positive contributions to his recovery.

Above all, I think it’s great that Collin is making himself heard, and standing up for his side of the story. I think the passage below sums things up nicely:

On a scale of one to five stars, I’d give In the Shadow of Eight four stars, and a hearty recommendation.

Buy In the Shadow of Eight from Amazon.com.

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