Metamorphosis is primarily a picture book containing pictures from throughout Marilyn Monroe's adult life, spanning from before she began modeling to shortly before her death. It contains many of her well-known and famous pictures, along with some that had not been published before the book was released. There is a mix of color and black-and-white photographs, some of which, even if you are someone who gets a calendar featuring her every year, you probably have not seen. The book has some text. The longest is at the beginning, an introduction that gives a short biography of her life, and at the end, which reprints an interview she gave toward the end of her life. Throughout the book, there are quotes from people who knew and worked with her (and a few from Marilyn herself) that give some insight into her life and who she was behind the scenes. To the extent that you can draw conclusions about her from those, she was a very shy and self-conscious person, and was very much a perfectionist, which often made her difficult to work with because if she did not think she was not doing something right, she would stop, regardless of what the director said. You also get the impression that Marilyn was a character that she slipped into. Many people said that she absolutely lit up in front of the camera (especially when she was getting her picture taken), and that when she was not performing, she was almost unrecognizable.
The hardcover version of the book is just under 300 pages, but since it is mostly pictures, you can easily read the text in a short amount of time. If you wanted to have it published as a coffee-table book, be aware that it includes one of the topless photos from the photoshoot she did before she became ultra-famous. Ultimately, this is one of the best books out there for anyone who is a fan of Marilyn Monroe and is absolutely worth the pickup.
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