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A review by kjharrowick
Tiny Mix Tapes of the Soul by Ken Napzok
5.0
Why I picked up this book:
I was searching for an old friend from my childhood when I stumbled upon Ken's facebook page and discovered he'd written a book. Ken and I grew up together, and while the two of us weren't climbing trees or chucking rocks at cars together (pretty sure it was only me), his family and mine were close and spent a lot of time with dinners, baseball, and of course playing cards. But he and my brother were super close, and when I turned seventeen, my family left California for Colorado.
This is the moment Ken influenced my life.
He made my brother a mix tape for the journey, one filled with his early DJ years, jokes, and tons of music. The song that stood out the most was "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. It became a cry for freedom from a life where people smiled and waved to my family, then whispered when we left the room how odd we were. The song also became a call to adventure, to a new life where social status, friends and enemies weren't decided during a third-grade fight.
So when I saw Ken's book about mix tapes, my entire Saturday flew right out the window in a cloud of nostalgia. I grabbed the book for my kindle and curled up on the back deck, ready to see how the one tiny mix tape that hooked into my soul influenced his life.
This review may contain spoilers.
First of all . . . I'd give this book 10 stars if I could. It was everything I never knew I needed in my life.
What I loved:
I absolutely devoured this book and couldn't put it down.
From the first page I connected to Ken's voice, probably because I was such a late bloomer in my own life. Ken starts off light-hearted with his opening words, but as I immersed myself into each of his essays, I found them alive with pain, struggle, and a raw depth that can only be found as we step on the ledge of life.
I expected to see bits and pieces of the kid I remember from childhood, and instead found that Ken's journey paralleled my own early adult years in so many ways. The struggle for love, the dark moments where the only lifeline left is a song (or in my case a story), and the duality of a life lived under a family's shadow while you try to forge your own sacred path. It was like watching the core of my soul travel a different route through life filled with music and Hollywoodisms (something I know zero about, BTW).
If you grew up somewhere between the 70s and 90s, this book is ripe with nostalgia. So many of the band names brought me right back to my childhood and the remembered love of anything from Aerosmith to Madonna to Beastie Boys. Unfortunately, my father overplayed the Beatles so I couldn't appreciate their music until well into my thirties. But between the music and utterly hilarious tale about the music snob buying back CDs is a heart-warming journey of dark, raw pain and how one man kept fighting for his place in the world until he held a spark of hope for the future.
Areas needing a touch of refinement:
I wish this story had one more pass at an editor. The prose is clean and honestly hooked me from the first line, but there were a few spots here and there where errant apostrophes or commas ran wild. They might even be breeding. It pulled me out of the story a few times, but the voice was strong enough to keep me immersed and racing forward.
Overall:
I'd highly recommend this book for anyone, especially those who love the movie "High Fidelity." Music snobbery is real, but Ken's journey is one any person can identify with. He has a way of digging deep into the reader's soul as if the book itself plays a subtle mix tape in the reader's head, and I hope to see Ken's library of tales grow because I'll probably devour them all.
I was searching for an old friend from my childhood when I stumbled upon Ken's facebook page and discovered he'd written a book. Ken and I grew up together, and while the two of us weren't climbing trees or chucking rocks at cars together (pretty sure it was only me), his family and mine were close and spent a lot of time with dinners, baseball, and of course playing cards. But he and my brother were super close, and when I turned seventeen, my family left California for Colorado.
This is the moment Ken influenced my life.
He made my brother a mix tape for the journey, one filled with his early DJ years, jokes, and tons of music. The song that stood out the most was "Magic Carpet Ride" by Steppenwolf. It became a cry for freedom from a life where people smiled and waved to my family, then whispered when we left the room how odd we were. The song also became a call to adventure, to a new life where social status, friends and enemies weren't decided during a third-grade fight.
So when I saw Ken's book about mix tapes, my entire Saturday flew right out the window in a cloud of nostalgia. I grabbed the book for my kindle and curled up on the back deck, ready to see how the one tiny mix tape that hooked into my soul influenced his life.
This review may contain spoilers.
First of all . . . I'd give this book 10 stars if I could. It was everything I never knew I needed in my life.
What I loved:
I absolutely devoured this book and couldn't put it down.
From the first page I connected to Ken's voice, probably because I was such a late bloomer in my own life. Ken starts off light-hearted with his opening words, but as I immersed myself into each of his essays, I found them alive with pain, struggle, and a raw depth that can only be found as we step on the ledge of life.
I expected to see bits and pieces of the kid I remember from childhood, and instead found that Ken's journey paralleled my own early adult years in so many ways. The struggle for love, the dark moments where the only lifeline left is a song (or in my case a story), and the duality of a life lived under a family's shadow while you try to forge your own sacred path. It was like watching the core of my soul travel a different route through life filled with music and Hollywoodisms (something I know zero about, BTW).
If you grew up somewhere between the 70s and 90s, this book is ripe with nostalgia. So many of the band names brought me right back to my childhood and the remembered love of anything from Aerosmith to Madonna to Beastie Boys. Unfortunately, my father overplayed the Beatles so I couldn't appreciate their music until well into my thirties. But between the music and utterly hilarious tale about the music snob buying back CDs is a heart-warming journey of dark, raw pain and how one man kept fighting for his place in the world until he held a spark of hope for the future.
Areas needing a touch of refinement:
I wish this story had one more pass at an editor. The prose is clean and honestly hooked me from the first line, but there were a few spots here and there where errant apostrophes or commas ran wild. They might even be breeding. It pulled me out of the story a few times, but the voice was strong enough to keep me immersed and racing forward.
Overall:
I'd highly recommend this book for anyone, especially those who love the movie "High Fidelity." Music snobbery is real, but Ken's journey is one any person can identify with. He has a way of digging deep into the reader's soul as if the book itself plays a subtle mix tape in the reader's head, and I hope to see Ken's library of tales grow because I'll probably devour them all.