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 left out, like why she and Robert had such a long gap between communicating after she became successful, but all and all an enchanting story. It made me like her even more.