I think this book had both an easier time and a harder time getting 5 stars. It’s interview style so it doesn’t have to have beautiful lyrical writing and a cohesive plot. But it also has to maintain your interest without those things and make you invested through tiny snippets of commentary about an era most readers weren't even born yet.

It impressively strikes this balance. I listened to the audio book which I highly recommend if you’re going to read this. Each person was voiced by a different actor and it made it so easy to follow and feel differently about each character. They all did great jobs too.

The story of a rock band in the mid 70s making music and doing copious amounts of drugs didn’t actually sound at all interesting to me but I kept hearing how great this book was. I finally decided to try it, especially since I’m much more comfortable DNFing books that don’t hit me right. This one….hits.

The struggles with addiction, self worth, loving someone who can’t stay clean, finding out if your dream is really what you want in life… these all hit so hard. They’re so well developed and each person felt completely real and believable and likable. Well, mostly likable.

I read Evelyn Hugo last year and I thought the “twist” here was funny. TJR has some weird thing about surprising the reader with who the biographer turns out to be.


I honestly liked this book waaaay better than Evelyn Hugo. I think the topics and the characters made more sense for this author to be writing about. Her use of race in Evelyn Hugo never quite sat right with me and I wasn’t sure I’d like anything from this author which is also partly why I avoided this book. I’m glad in the end I gave it a try. It impacted me far more than I expected and I appreciated the way that addiction was handled. Maybe not the best rep ever but it showed it for what it is: ugly, hurtful, destructive, alluring, enthralling, freeing, imprisoning, and above all, a disease, not a moral judgement.