CH: Contributor Maria Brito, an award-winning designer, author, and art curator, writes about running into Beyoncé at an exercise class in New York, when Brito was seven months pregnant, and how Beyoncé "looked at me and my belly with grace, surprise, delight, and a big, warm, Southern smile,"and then congratulated her. Hello awesome NYC celebrity encounter! It dawned on Brito that day that "Beyoncé's artistry depends as much on her creativity as it does on her empathy, her vulnerability, and her humanity, all quintessential elements for being a true and lasting artist." What do you think, if there is one, is Beyoncé's message? There’s no news just yet on whether the Renaissance film will be on Netflix where Homecoming is also available, but fans are hoping the movie will eventually be added to the platform following its cinema release. Plot: Let’s take a journey into the time line of the Queen Bey, as we watch a shy, private, girl emerge (and erupt) into the mega super star we see before us today.

This book was initially difficult to get into because of the amount of creative licence he took with the dialogue. I suppose I've never actually read a biography like this and reading some of the lines in the book that were not direct quotes knowing that most of the people in the situation didn't say that really made me cringe. Maybe I'm less than smart, but I think the story was rich enough to have gone without it. That being said, it is full of little tidbits and interesting insights, like the long road to stardom Beyonce had to walk (and continues to carve out in her own unique fashion). The longtime struggle between her and Mathew and how everything kind of blew up toward the end was particularly interesting and a strong undercurrent in the book (and also really explains the song 'Daddy Lessons' on Lemonade). My first memory of Beyoncé is being 3/4 years old listening to this EP my parents bought me featuring Destiny's Child's Say My Name along with 4(?) of its remixes. That's one of my earliest music memories and while I would not consider myself a member of The Hive (although I buzz nearby), I am a big fan of Bey and have massive respect for her.VC: It was my pleasure. One of the joys of working so hard on this collection was knowing that on the other end, when the book came out, I'd get to spend months talking about Beyoncé!

The Good & The Bad: I mean, on the whole, this book does a decent job of spinning the entire Beyonce story that it wants to tell - the story of someone who has always relentlessly pursued perfection, even at the cost of her own mental or even physical health. It paints Beyonce as something of a cipher; emotionless and driven only by her own standards for perfection. As an unofficial book, it also tells the only story it can tell, one that becomes increasingly fragmented as the book carries on.CH: And love. Right? Contributor Meredith Broussard points out that "love" is the word that shows up most often in Beyoncé's songs out of 500 words that showed up most frequently. She’s 41 now and beginning her seventh world tour, so the show finds savvy ways to let her rest. The chrome tank was a chair. The mechanical arms almost functioned as a tripod. She growled the call and response on “Heated” instead of dancing to it. For “Church Girl” and some songs from 4, she was the stationary centerpiece amid a dozen dancers. But who cares? Her most memorable set pieces have been a walk and a chair. “When they invented walking they never dreamed it could ever look that good,” Seth Meyers tweeted during her 2013 Super Bowl Halftime Show — a line I think about every time she simply strides across a stage. What is her religion: Beyoncé grew up Baptist, the domination that she knows well, now like, Diddy, she believes in a One God. CH: I also think, with long-term marriage, that it comes down to, Do we want to stay together, or not? Both people have to want it. And if you both want to, you'll work on it. Looking at it from the outside, it seems as if both Beyoncé and Jay-Z wanted that — to stay together. That's why she stayed, after all the stuff that went down.

Queen Bey’s music consistently challenges and pushes boundaries, even incorporating influences from blues through new wave and electropop. My family and friends make fun of me for my Beyonce super fandom because I'm not the super fan type. I grow bored with everything and everyone very easily but not Beyonce. Don't ask me why because I don't know why? She just speaks to something within me. She makes me want to work harder and be better. After watching Homecoming ( the first time) I felt a little bit depressed because I realized that I wasn't working as hard as I should be to achieve my goals. So I played Homecoming again and I started making plans to lift myself out of my mini life slump. That's what Beyonce does to me. She inspires me. Her many accolades and achievements in almost every field of human endeavor show why Beyoncé is admired by “Beyhivers” across the globe. Becoming Beyonce is as in depth a biography as we will probably ever see of Beyonce's meteoric rise to Icon status. As to young women making it at 16 years old, a consensual age in most of the World that is book/novel she would have to write about.There wasn't anything super "new" or revealing in the book either. A full, documented story about an amazing singer's rise to fame. It was detailed, it kept me interested, but it didn't provide much that I didn't already know as a longtime fan of the talented Beyonce. Her songs are emblematic of freedom, independence, and femininity and empower women by celebrating their divine femininity through the power of her lyrics.

VC: But in using the word "love," Beyoncé also shows us how complex it can be. It's not like she's talking about two little glass ornaments sitting on a shelf. It's dirty love, it's drunken love, it's all kinds of love. And she does a really unique job of that, among her contemporaries.

Becoming Queen Bey

The platform she built with her countless wins and appearances is used rightfully as a way for her to spread her messages of equality and strength. I don't know that a BIG Beyonce fan would glean too many new insights but I certainly did, and again, found this particularly interesting to read a few years after publication, as it's almost quite prescient in a lot of ways about how much more firmly Beyonce would take stead of her career and music.