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Jan 04, 2012

Eddie rated it:

I never thought much about Patti Smith. The images I saw of her never attracted me, and what I knew of her Rimbaud fixation turned me off. I always had a problem with the Beat and Punk appropriation of Rimbaud as more a figure of rebellion than a sophisticated poet. For me poetry is a phenomenon of the page, not an outfit you wear down the street. I also never got into Punk Rock. Going to college in the fall of 1983 I had probably only heard of The Sex Pistols, though I had never listened to the More...

20 comments like (71 people liked it)

Nov 21, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Smith writes with a poet's clear imagery and an economy of words all too rare in the memoir genre.
Before Robert Mapplethorpe died, Patti Smith promised him that she would one day write the story of their years in New York City. Now, twenty years after his death, she has made good on that promise.

This is the story of a beautiful, complex, demanding and ever-evolving friendship between two young, hopeful, actively unconventional creatives. They alternated in the role of mus More...

6 comments like (26 people liked it)

Jan 07, 2012

Ian rated it:

Looking For You (I Was)

I can see why some reviews detect white-washing or sugar-coating in "Just Kids", but I wanted desperately to believe the story Patti Smith was telling about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Glitter in Their Eyes

Patti admits to her naivete, but I don't think she was trying to hide stuff from her kids or anything.

Nor do I think she closed off her emotions about her past.

Ultimately, the book is a l More...

2 comments like (24 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Shan rated it:

Summer 1999

“Lookit all that armpit hair,” she says, holding up Ty’s Easter album, impressed. “Not her best record though,” I reply and glance around at the goons in Ty’s house. “Who cares,” she says, “the cover rules.” Jason, Kitch, Ellis, Kyle, Lucas, Katy Jane Flood. My goons. “Hey sexy,” she shouts in my direction. I look over and she’s holding Sticky Fingers against the appropriate part of her anatomy. I tell her she’s a goof, which she knows. I love her, and sometimes I’m bewitche More...

5 comments like (10 people liked it)

Feb 11, 2011

Janet rated it:

This book will be added to "The Art Spirit" as an essential volume on my writer's "behind the desk" bookshelf, the story of two baby artists and how they grew. There's an oddly innocent tone to this all--for instance, the sexual relationship between the two of them is never really discussed, only accepted--when Patti gets the clap, we understand it's from him, but this is not a kiss and tell memoir. It's an opportunity to walk a mile in Patti Smith's head, in a less coded More...

5 comments like (27 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2012

Velvetink rated it:

Did anyone think Patti was "whitewashing" her past in this?

"longing. that desire. that tapeworm.a word
I hadn't learned".... (Seventh Heaven- "Longing")

I really longed to LOVE "Just Kids", to go the whole hog with 5 stars. I had waited long enough to get hold of a copy & eventually when my library got it in some jerk kept it overdue 3 whole months and I was checking with them every 2nd day like a teenager. "Is it back yet More...

13 comments like (14 people liked it)

Oct 10, 2011

Amber ~Geektastic~ rated it:

The runaway artist is a typical phase of adolescence, and the true measurement of one’s devotion to a creative life is the ability to sustain the kind of drive that can keep you going through the hunger, cold, loneliness and (perhaps worst of all) the disillusionment of adulthood. Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe had this drive in spades, although the route they used to reach their final goals can be seen as both fortuitous and questionable. The last thing an artist wants to be is a “sell ou More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Aug 11, 2011

Jessica rated it:

just got the kindle preview. could be annoying or great.

* * * * * *

Finished this last night. Of Mapplethorpe and Smith's relationship, I'll only say that I found it sweet and sad. Other things interested me about this book more.

I have to agree with Yahaira, it was both annoying and great. The starving artist / wannabe might be a phase lots of kids and young people went through before they turned into responsible a More...

1 comment like (7 people liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Sean rated it:

Patti Smith's wistful account of her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe is a pretty nice book despite it's tendency to bore in a meandering and oblique middle section. While I have my suspicions that a lot is glossed over throughout*, the book remains pleasing and extremely readable. Check it out if you need something relaxing, even if you're not interested in her music.

* Am I the only one that thinks she merely pays lip service to her lover's homosexuality and hustling? Isn't this More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 30, 2010

Nick rated it:

There are some moments of real poignancy here and some very deft turns of phrase, but I was also just bored stiff for most of it. Clearly Smith has led a really interesting life, but she's just not a great writer. The great bulk of the book was a long series of "Then this happened. Then that happened. Then Robert did this. Then I did that." And while there is a lot of reflection about art, there is very little on the subject of her relationship with Mapplethorpe, supposedly the More...

15 comments like (29 people liked it)

Aug 28, 2011

Erik rated it:

It is difficult for me to think of an artist who illuminates pure positive affect in the way that Patti Smith does. For someone who always had a special place in his heart for Patti's "Horses" record, I can safely say there are moments where her music and her words have taken my mind and my heart to places I would have never imagined. For me, the record has a similar effect to Allen Ginsberg's, "Howl," and Walt Whitman's, "Song of Myself." The passion, the energy More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2012

Mark rated it:

I am not fan of Robert Mapplethorpe, to say that out front and bluntly. However, I do like Patti Smith, for the most part, and wanted a better insight into her own development. She seems to have lucked out in having approached the rock n roll scene rather indirectly- backing into it, as it were, from art and poetry. Perhaps that is what makes her head and shoulders a better performer than most of her generation of punk rockers- the greater majority of whom became popular not on the basis of any More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 04, 2011

Karen rated it:

By the multi-talented Patti Smith, musician, artist, writer, and 70's icon, this fairly short autobiography is the story of Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe, when they first met in NYC-- struggling, starving and desperate for fame (in Robert's case). They lived together for some time until parting ways as Robert was drawn more and more to the rapidly growing homosexual culture spreading like crazy in New York and San Francisco at the time. Being of this generation, I found it fascinating, not to me More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 23, 2011

Liana rated it:

She was a humble jack in the kingdom of New York's bygone era. Patti Smith--a free spirit alight in New York's golden years of pure art, unadulterated creation and madness. I truly adore this book.

It is utterly awe-inspiring to realize how many of these lives intertwined with hers. And it is utterly sobering to realize how many of those lives have led to demise and have turned to legends. She rubbed elbows with so many famous or infamous artists and personalities of the time that one More...

3 comments like (6 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2011

David rated it:

A lovely book about youth, hope, the meaning of love and being an artist. Patti Smith writes beautifully and certainly paid her dues but manages to put a positive spin on hunger, head lice and desperate situations. She romanticizes the underground NY art scene when it sometimes it just sounds disgusting. She must have really wanted it and I have to admire that. Sometimes it got a little too artsy fartsy for my taste but it was written in her voice and I believe it. There seemed to be things she More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Jan 08, 2011

Lavinia rated it:

I've known about the book for a long time, but was never really interested in reading it. Then a while ago I stumbled upon one of Patti's mesmerizing photos and I just knew I had to read it.

I must be honest and say that besides "Because the night" (which is one of my all time favourite songs), I wasn't very much familiar with her music, let alone her poetry, art or private life. That's probably why I googled something every five pages or so: artists, musicians, poems, Rober More...

1 comment like (8 people liked it)

Dec 18, 2010

Linda rated it:

I'll start by saying initially, I had no desire to read this book. I know who Patti Smith is, and amongst my substantial record collection, yes I did say record, there is not a single Patti Smith! A good friend highly recommended it to me and handed me her copy. That said, I am so glad she did. Patti Smith writes like a poet (which she is) and captured me from page one. She shares her story of her love/friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe with a raw, honest sensitivity. Her experiences and the More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

May 25, 2011

q rated it:

I'm neither a fan of Patti Smith nor of Robert Mapplethorpe and I had no idea they'd even known each other until I ran across this. I bought her memoir of their relationship hoping for a picture of bohemian life in Manhattan in the 60s and 70s (and hoping it wouldn't involve too much Warhol). I got that and a lot more.

The first section, about her childhood, has a very stilted style. By the time she reaches 19 and it's time to go to the city, I didn't think I could stomach much mor More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Mar 06, 2011

Marco rated it:

Recentemente ho letto che un giorno della fine degli anni sessanta, o dell'inizio dei settanta, Patti Smith, squattrinatissima, era in un ristorante automatico, di quelli che metti dentro le monetine in una macchinetta e ti esce il panino o il piatto di pasta o la coscia di pollo, insomma, quello che vuoi tra quello che c'è, dipende dal bottone che premi. Lei, Patti, era lì che metteva i soliti settantacinque cents per il solito panino, schiaccia il bottone e niente, non viene fuori alcun panino More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 27, 2011

Grace rated it:

i absolutely loved this book. it's a story you've heard a million times: a young artist moves to new york city, prevails over destitution and finds inspiration and comfort amongst eccentric (and quite often pretentious) kindred souls... including and especially but not necessarily limited to one mr robert mapplethorpe. or maybe you don't know this particular story... but i felt as though i knew the story before it unfolded on the page. the chelsea hotel. the summer of love. max's kansas ci More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

May 25, 2011

Fasterpussycat rated it:

I read so many memoirs, I'd almost forgotten how extraordinary the genre can be in the right hands. Smith's are the right hands.

Smith and Mapplethorpe were beautiful and poor and in love, tangled up in each other's art and arms, full of bravado and questioning and each with an unwavering faith in the other. On the brink, on the edge. Reading about it is marvelous, every page lush with language, it sometimes reads like a travelogue of NYC in the late '60s/early '70s. With run-ins and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 08, 2011

Kim rated it:

I like how honest her writing is - might sound a bit strange but there you go. I feel like Patti Smith wrote about things I’m struggling with as well. I recognise thoughts, feelings. it’s wonderful to realise you’re not alone. it’s also wonderful to finally read words that describe the way you feel, when you were never able to find these words yourself.

in some way, this book is for everyone. every human being can be an artist. it’s wonderful how these two people were able to help ea More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Larry added it

Wow. What a fantastically written and compelling book.

True confession time: I honestly didn't know much about Patti Smith, save her song "Because the Night," and I didn't know much about the artist Robert Mapplethorpe, except for the controversy much of his work generated. I also had no idea that Smith and Mapplethorpe had a more than 20-year friendship that inspired both of their artistic careers to flourish. But I had heard wonderful things about Smith's memoir, Just Kids (it recent More...

0 comments like

Jan 25, 2012

Isaac rated it:

What a great read. I highly recommend this book to not only fans of Patti Smith and Robert Maplethorpe but also to those who love a good memoir. Each chapter creates a different mood, time and setting. The art, music and politics of 70's NYC are captured here with great beauty. I always knew Patti Smith loved her French poets like Rimbaud and Baudelaire and It shows in her writing (without once seeming pretentious or showy). My favorite parts of the book reflect a young Smith and Mapplethorpe More...

0 comments like

Jan 24, 2012

Tara rated it:

I wouldn't have read this if it wasn't chosen for my book club, and I went into it not really knowing who Patti Smith or Robert Mapplethorpe really were (aside from vaguely knowing what they did).

The tone of this book is really strange. It's both sleepy and childlike. In a sense, it makes it easier to read, as it sort of meanders along with no apparent direction. Mostly, though, it only served to distance me from the material. The tone was so casual and distant, that I too felt I coul More...

0 comments like

Jan 19, 2012

Melissa rated it:

I enjoyed reading this book, and I'm glad I did, but I have to admit that when I heard Patti Smith interviewed about this book on Fresh Air, it touched me just as much, if not more, than the actual book did.

I love the way the first couple chapters go. The tone of the book works so well with the innocence of her early years. But, as time goes by and she's interacting with more and more underground and not-so-underground celebrities the book has less poetry and more of the feeling of a More...

0 comments like

Jan 05, 2012

Judy rated it:

I've owned this book for months and for some reason kept moving it to the bottom of the to-read stack. Finally, this week I threw it into a bag of books that I was taking on vacation. Wow, what a great read. No wonder this book kept showing up on the "best of" lists for 2010 and won the National Book Award for Nonfiction that year. A chance encounter between two young people who moved to New York City to follow their art led to a life long friendship. Patti Smith and Robert Mapple More...

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Jan 04, 2012

Mark rated it:

Beautifully written and worthy of the National Book Award, Patti Smith's prose in Just Kids is elegant without feeling affected (or unnatural), making the act of reading this story a true pleasure. Additionally, the book possesses a nicely structured narrative arc with most of the story taking place before either Smith or Mapplethorpe are widely-recognized names. The title comes from an anecdote Smith tells of a walk she and Mapplethorpe take thru Washington Square in which both of them are pa More...

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Jan 02, 2012

Jillwilson rated it:

Patti Smith begins Just Kids with a formal old-fashioned kind of language. The voice unsettles – it’s not what I expected. Soon after she departs Chicago for New York, that voice disappears and what replaces it is a frank and honest contemporary feel. Her story is beguiling – she leaves badly paid factory work and the shame of having a child out of wedlock in search of something more akin with who she is – a potential artist of some kind. Her mother – who thinks she will probably end up waitress More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 02, 2012

David rated it:

I might have given up the third or fourth time I got head lice from my mattress.

I might have given up when my lover gave me gonorrhea.

I might have given up after I grew tired of having enough money for either food or art supplies, but not both.

Patti Smith didn't give up. She went, friendless, in New York City in 1967. She knew she was an artist. She didn't have to go to art school, cultivate an educated-sounding accent, or sit at the foot of any guru. She poss More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)