Dey Street Books

Cher‘s long-awaited book, Cher: The Memoir Part One, arrives Tuesday — but she has yet to read it.

The book was first penned by a ghostwriter, but after Cher said it didn’t feel like “her,” she realized her story had to be told over two books. As Cher tells The New York Times, “Too much life. Lived too long.”

So the version that’s coming out on Tuesday was written over just four months, with the help of two more ghostwriters and weekly visits from Cher’s editor. “This book has exhausted me,” Cher tells the Times. “It took a lot out of me.”

Cher says she hasn’t read the final version of the book yet, but notes, “People can say what they want. It’s who I am. I am who I am. I can’t change it.”

Part One starts with Cher’s birth and ends in the 1980s. In between, she tells the story of her tumultuous childhood: When she was an infant, her father put her in an orphanage and then left town. Her waitress mother paid $4.50 a week toward her care and finally took her back home when she was able to.

“I learned early that most adults were unpredictable, so I couldn’t count on them and had to be constantly vigilant,” she writes.

When she met Sonny Bono, Cher thought she’d finally found the stability she craved, but eventually, she says, he became possessive and jealous. Then, Cher says, “He took all my money.”

Bono died in 1998 and Cher tells the Times, “To this day, I wish to God I could just ask, ‘Son, at what point, during what day, did you go, “Yeah, you know what? I’m going to take her money.”‘”

Part Two is due next year.