Martha Stewart never pointed a glue gun at my head, daughter says

Ever wonder what it would have been like to grow up in the home of a domestic diva like Martha Stewart?

Stewart's daughter, Alexis, wrote a book about it. While "Whateverland" is not exactly a tell-all, Alexis is pretty candid about her upbringing--which is surprising, considering how careful the Stewart family is about cultivating its image and associated brand.

"I grew up with a glue gun pointed to my head," Alexis writes in an excerpt provided to the news media by the book's publisher. "If I didn't do something perfectly I had to do it again."

Alexis told the "Today" show on Monday that the glue gun was merely a metaphor. "There were no glue guns," she said. "I wish there had been--it would have been more fun. [Martha] worked hard and was a perfectionist and I don't have a problem with that."

Martha made her wrap her own Christmas presents, Alexis says in the book, which was co-authored by Jennifer Koppelman Hutt and published last week.

"My mother used to have me wrap my own presents on Christmas, hand me things and say, 'Now wrap these but don't look inside,'" Alexis wrote. "But I didn't because I knew it was never worth looking."

In another excerpt, Alexis says that Martha largely shunned handing out Halloween treats for children.

"We turned off all of the lights, pretended we weren't home and my mother never had anything but apples and pennies to annoy the children with," Alexis writes.

Alexis, who is 46, says in the book that "there was never anything to eat at my house. There were ingredients but no prepared food of any kind."

Alexis also writes that her mother always left the bathroom door open when she urinated.

Martha, for her part, is taking the book and its claims of an oddly cold household in stride.

"It is hilarious and enlightening and full of funny stories," the 70-year-old home mogul said earlier this month on her eponymous TV show. "I encourage to you buy it, read it and make it a best seller."

Other popular Yahoo! News stories:

• Inside News Corp.'s contentious, comical shareholder meeting
• Al Jazeera first to air image of the Gadhafi's body
• Too many 2012 debates? There were just as many four years ago

Want more of our best media stories? Visit The Cutline or connect with us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.