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General Category => Book Reviews => Topic started by: MadJohnShaft on October 06, 2011, 06:57:25 AM

Title: More 80s memoirs - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in
Post by: MadJohnShaft on October 06, 2011, 06:57:25 AM
Hair Metal L.A. [Kindle Edition].


I love that all the old people are starting to tell their Rock N Roll stories from the 80s. This one is a surprise - it's well written and a joy to read due to the occasional brilliant passage.  Where I'm at in the story she's still making her way to LA - the title's Hair Metal but she's kind of punky, in a glam kind of way, and obsessed with the rock n roll like you and me.

http://www.amazon.com/Nerd-Girl-Rocks-Paradise-ebook/dp/B004ISL7C0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317898373&sr=1-1 (http://www.amazon.com/Nerd-Girl-Rocks-Paradise-ebook/dp/B004ISL7C0/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1317898373&sr=1-1)



Amazon blurby....
Adult/High School–Having graduated from William and Mary, Anne Thomas Soffee, the nerd girl of the title and a longtime fan of hair-metal bands, decided that Virginia was not the place to enjoy her passion for the music. And so, with a vague statement of interest in her writing on music by the editor of a metal magazine in Hollywood, she set off for L.A. What she found there was not what she had expected: certainly not her dream of becoming the next great music critic. But the years she spent in L.A. were not without interest as she hit high points and low before having to accept the reality of the situation, aided by the triumph of grunge over metal and her own alcohol and drug addictions. This is not an unusual story; any number of memoirs by young writers chronicle those first uncertain years out of school. Yet Soffee's stands out for its humor and its lack of self-absorption and self-importance. The author has no illusions about the reality of her life at that time, nor does she now condemn it as wasted years. Neither a cautionary tale nor a paean to living it up,
Title: Re: More 80s memoirs - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in
Post by: The Shocker on October 06, 2011, 10:44:03 PM
Sounds interesting.  Let me know how it turns out. 
Title: Re: More 80s memoirs - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in
Post by: MadJohnShaft on October 08, 2011, 03:13:28 PM
Turns out Guns n Roses did it with a drumstick in the conservatory.

She got to LA and worked in Hair Metal journalism - but then grunge happened. Hilarity ensues.
Title: Re: More 80s memoirs - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It
Post by: Isabellacat on December 05, 2011, 07:51:56 PM
Sounds like a rad book. I might look for it at the bookstore tomorrow.
Title: Re: More 80s memoirs - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in
Post by: MadJohnShaft on December 16, 2011, 09:17:14 PM
Legs McNeil is in it
John the Concur root is in it


It is not all weepy and about recovery - that's hardly in it all. It's heroic.
Title: Re: More 80s memoirs - Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City: A True Story of Faking It in
Post by: yiyiyi on May 17, 2012, 01:06:46 PM
I must read this...amazon isn't listing it on Kindle - but I can get it for $3 in real-book format. Joy!