Review: Katie Couric is done pleasing people, as her new memoir proves

"Going There" by Katie Couric; Little, Brown (528 pages, $30)

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In Katie Couric's new memoir "Going There," the TV news star recalls a question asked by her therapist. "Have you ever considered that maybe not everyone is going to like you?"

Couric admits that she hadn't. She was a "pleaser" since childhood, "a master of recruiting people to team Katie."

The breakthrough moment clearly stuck with her. There is no relentless people-pleasing in her fearlessly frank memoir, a wildly entertaining and often emotional ride through the volatile media landscape of the last 40 years in which no subject is off limits.

Couric, 64, puts herself among the generation of career-oriented woman inspired by "," but she was in a class of her own. Hard-working and extroverted, she over-delivered at every turn, keeping No. 1 in the ratings for 16 years. She also stood up for herself, demanding an apology from CNN executive , who said she was hired for her breast size, and telling , then president of NBC, to back off when he said she was too aggressive in questioning his Bush White House pals.