Mother knows best.

At least that’s what she wants you to think because she said it a hundred times in your childhood until you actually believed it. One day, though, if you were lucky, you learned that Mom didn’t always know better, but she did her best – like in Cher’s new book, Cher: The Memoir Part One, when Mom helped create a star .

Although she doesn’t remember it, little Cheryl Sarkisian spent a few weeks as a toddler in a Catholic Charities orphanage because her father disappeared and her mother couldn’t afford to care for her. By the way, “Cheryl” was the name on her birth certificate, even though her mother planned to call her “Cherilyn.”

The first time wasn’t the last time little Cher was left with someone other than her mother, Jackie Jean, a beautiful, talented, struggling singer and actress who was born into poverty and lived most of her life there. When money was tight, she temporarily took her daughter to live with friends or family, or the small family moved from house to house and state to state. Along the way, parades in and out of California provided Cher with opportunities to act, sing, and learn the art of performing, which she enjoyed most.

Meanwhile, Jackie Jean married and remarried, five or six husbands in all; She changed her name to Georgia, worked in movies and television, gave Cher a little sister, moved the family again, got odd jobs and did whatever it took to keep the lights on.

As Cher grew up in the shadow of her glamorous mother, she gained a bit of glamor herself, became sassy and independent, and was prone to separation anxiety, which she attributed to being abandoned as a young child. In her mother’s shadow, she had always been surrounded by film and television stars, and while taking acting classes, she met even more.

And then she met Salvatore “Sonny” Bono, who was a friend before he became a lover.

So here’s the very, very pleasant surprise: Cher: The Memoir Part One is a book that’s downright fun to read.

If you’ve ever seen author Cher in interviews or on late night television, here’s what you saw: blunt truth, sarcastic humor, sass, and no pity parties. She tells a good story, ends this book with her burgeoning film career, and leaves readers eagerly awaiting the stories she will tell in her next book.

The other happy surprise is that this memoir isn’t just about her. Cher spends much of the first half writing about her mother and grandmother, both complicated women who struggled to keep their heads and those of their offspring above water. Anyone who looks between the lines will be amazed.

Certainly, Cher: The Memoir Part One is a delight for fans, but it’s also a great memoir for anyone who particularly loves the genre and doesn’t mind a bit of profanity. If that’s you, then you got this, baby.