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First Quarter Book Review Roundup

May 1, 2018 by A.S. Van Dorston

It looks like my post-Holiday break from writing has gone a bit longer this year. Some big household projects have kept me busy and exhausted, but don’t worry, I’ve been listening to as much music as always and will post a belated roundup of top releases soon (you can also follow my top picks in my lists and on RYM.

I’ve also been reading. I realized I’ve read a half dozen new books that have just been published in 2018. So what better way to blow off the cobwebs than a book roundup! The new ones are ranked roughly by order of preference, followed by some others that go back chronologically.

While I’ll read any music book in existence, my tastes in fiction is fairly unique, in that I am fairly picky when it comes to most books you see on the bestseller lists. I most of the ones I try, and I really, really cannot stand the substandard writing in many popular YA series. Yet I make time for some fairly underdog writers who play with hybrid genres such as urban fantasy, near-future sci fi comedy, supernatural mystery and magical realism. It doesn’t all have to be literary genius as long as there’s a good story and the writing doesn’t hinder it.

That said, there is a new series that’s a contender to rank among my all time favorites like Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhause-Five, John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy Of Dunces, Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere and Tom RobbinsJitterbug Perfume. The Redwood Revenger is a thrilling first part of a trilogy and debut novel by Johannes Johns.  I received free preview copies earlier, though I purchased the final version. I would never be able to read and re-read a book and admire it more each time if it wasn’t truly great. No need to take my word for it, of this batch it’s also by far the most inexpensive book. See for yourself!

The Redwood Revenger, Book One, by Johannes Johns

A deeply weird and funny adventure set in Cascadia, a future post-dystopia I’d actually want to live in.

Strong female protagonist (check), an evil sock monkey antagonist (yup), a friendly(ish) floating Cheshire pig, surf-rock Sasquatches, an ancient pirate queen, mustache-themed art installations, parkour and clever uses for swazzles — a future world I’d actually want to live in!

The Redwood Revenger isn’t a dreary dystopia. It’s vibrantly colorful and lush. It doesn’t talk down or bore with a simplistic political allegory, instead it addresses complex gray areas of good and evil, life and death, love and friendship, sex and rivalry with sly subtlety, satire and humor. The first book in a series, it sets up the world and the characters well, while satisfyingly unpacking the first part of a larger, much more sinister mystery.

Near future dystopias are probably the most common setting in contemporary Sci-Fi. And while it makes sense that they’re usually pretty damn grim and anguished, they’re not exactly places I’d ever want to visit, especially in an extended series! Instead, the world Johannes Johns created for The Redwood Revenger seems more hopeful—the characters have a refreshing lust for life, a sort of joy in the face of adversity. Yes, it’s 2043 and the Great Warming has happened, there’s been an Arctic War, America is no more, and an all too familiar tyrannical Web 2.0 surveillance state with murderous slot-toasters has come and gone (once led by a “Great Autarch”). But, here, the West Coast has seceded and become a Cascadian Federation, a thriving, sun-powered agriculturally innovative empire…surrounded by enemies.

Cascadia is under threat (of course), from the (evil) VanDirks fast food megacorp, specializing in “beef meats” and bizarre “spokes characters” such as “greasy buddies.” The book opens with the heroine, 16 year-old Olivia Ermine and her uncle Ernie having just returned from a nomadic, globetrotting existence to settle in the city of Redwood. Olivia finds clues that hint at an old rivalry exists between her family and the Van Dirks family, going back to the 1600s. She’s stalked by an outlandish killer sock monkey (or another rogue-AI?) as she starts to uncover aspects of herself more ferocious and bloodthirsty than she’d ever imagined. There’s violence and villainy, humor, fluid (and scorching) sexuality, “thunderbud,” high-brow writing combined with low-brow hijinks (bioluminescent poop jokes!—don’t ask), characters that I care about, and a worldwide VanDirks Corp. conspiracy to uncover.  Olivia is also gay, not a big deal in her community in 2043, but having a great queer main character in 2018 is still a welcome act of representation even in the sci-fi and fantasy genres where heterosexual characters are still the norm.

While the main characters are young adults, it’s more for people who may have grown up on YA, but can handle the explicit sex, complexity and literary writing. A potential downside for those trying to curb bed-time snacking habits are the tantalizing descriptions of food served up at the Rosebeetle Café and made by the characters. At least the food is healthy and vegetarian! Another downside, the events in the book that lead to the formation of the Cascadian Federation are all too plausible, and could inspire some strange, bad dreams. Given recent trends in contemporary fiction, will readers be disappointed that our heroine has not been abused? Uncle Ernie’s worst ineptitude of parenting was to mistakenly enroll Olivia in an Eastern European so-called “summer camp” (Children’s Work Collective 426) where the children provided labor to make air filter masks. Will anyone be disappointed that she’s not sexually assaulted, tortured or permanently deformed? I hope not. Those things are unnecessary in order to give the story weight. Olivia was orphaned at a young age and has suddenly been confronted by a sinister ancient conspiracy that wants her dead, and might  destroy the world. All things considered, she has plenty on her plate, and I eagerly await the next book in the series. | 283 pages | $3 Amazon

RIYL: Thomas Pynchon, Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens, Alexandre Dumas, Neil Stephenson’s The Diamond Age: or A Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, Christopher Moore’s A Dirty Job, Ursula K. LeGuin’s Earthsea, Jonathan Swift, Rudy Rucker’s Wetware.

Noir by Christopher Moore

Persevere through the dark shadows, be rewarded with Bugs Bunny meets the Men In Black.

Recently I had just finished reading The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (1999), and was thinking, more please. I know that Christopher Moore has 15 other books. I’ve read and enjoyed some, Practical Demonkeeping (1992), Coyote Blue (1994), A Dirty Job (2006) and Secondhand Souls (2015), but had trouble getting into others (Sacre Bleu, Fool, Lamb). The stars must have been aligned, as the fog rolled in and my pre-ordered copy of Noir appeared on my Kindle.

Initially I feared it was going to be another dud, as the book starts out like a seemingly third rate genre exercise, set in 1947 San Francisco, where every encounter seemed to have the potential for brutal violence, and the misogyny was just plain creepy. I hung in there, and just before the middle of the book, it shifts gears and becomes something altogether more buoyant and fun. In the end notes Moore admits that while he intended it to be dark and dangerous, it become more like “Damon Runyon meets Bug Bunny than Raymond Chandler meets Jim Thompson.” So rather than The Big Sleep we get Mars Attacks meets The Men In Black, and thank the devil for that.

I’ve read enough of Moore’s books now to recognize that his writing truly comes to life when he describes or writes from the perspective of a non-human, be it an animal, demon, golem or seamonster. I won’t specify the type of non-human here because it could be seen as a spoiler in this book. But basically the main characters (in this one, Sammy “Two Twos” Tiffin and his paramour The Cheese) tend to overcome their character flaws with love and loyalty, while everyone else is either bitten, eaten, dropped from airplanes or vaporized, not necessarily in that order.

Moore did significant research on San Francisco in the late 40s, so many of the landmarks mentioned in North Beach, Chinatown, the Fillmore and the Tenderloin are real or based on real places, like Cookie’s Coffee based on the Tenderloin diner called Coffee Dan’s. Jimmy’s Joynt is based on the female drag club Tommy’s Joint on Broadway, and I think I’ve been to the eight-foot-wide, four-stories-tall jook house described in Noir, though I hope my dish did not include snake venom.

Probably because of the rough beginning and adherence to certain restrictive genre rules, I did not fall in love with the characters like I did with A Dirty Job and it’s followup Secondhand Souls (more of that please please please), but it should satisfy both longtime fans of his work, and those looking for an irreverent twist (and perhaps a knee in the crotch) of the noir genre. | 357 pages | $14.99 Amazon

RIYL: Tom Robbins, David Wong’s John Dies In The End, Warren Ellis’ Gun, Jonathan Lethem’s Gun, With Occasional Music.

Bandwidth (An Analog Novel, Book 1) by Eliot Peper

Thrillers are not usually my thing, but I had already been eyeing Eliot Peper’s Neon Fever Dream when this came out. The near-future setting of this cyber-thriller, and Peper’s interesting credentials convinced me to give it a go. It starts out running with a burst of violence, but it almost lost me early on in a cheesy interaction between the main character, Dag Calhoun, and a Korean woman. He apparently has a fetish for her “type.” “Oh noes,” I thought, getting ready to bail.

I hung in, and it turns out there is a very good, sinister reason for his attraction that you’ll just have to read the book to find out why. The idea of a digital feed via chip implant/virtual reality interface is not a new one, as it can be traced back to pre-cyberpunk sci fi in the late 70s. But Peper manages to weave a compelling story with a complex character, and some international intrigue with some of the top power brokers in business and politics. I’m hooked, and will investigate some of Peper’s previous works and look forward to the next Analog book in October. | 266 pages | $4.99 Amazon 0$ Kindle Unlimited

RIYL: Andy Weir’s Artemis, Neal Stephenson’s Reamde, Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One.

The Hazel Wood, by Melissa Albert

More horror than fantasy, but fairly original.

A brief skim of the description gave me the idea that 17 year-old Alice had a long-lost grandmother residing in a charming mansion that’s the gateway to a spooky yet cozy magical world. Perhaps it threw me off because of the intended young adult audience starting at 12, but this is far more sinister than what I imagined. The unique series of fairy tales referenced are so dark as to make Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere (a clear influence on author Melissa Albert) look like Disneyland. The historic folklore and fairytales collected by the Grimm brothers were truly dark, but these venture into the terrifying territory of psychological horror. Yes Ms. Albert, please check off horror as one of your genres. Anyway, expectations adjusted, I have to say that it took a really long time for Alice to actually make her way to the Hazel Wood and, in turn, the Hinterland. Patience is rewarded by a pretty intense, somewhat psychedelic experience in this magical horror show. If I were 12 I’d be left deeply disturbed and traumatized, but for those up for the experience will find this a pretty unique journey. | 368 pages | $9.99 Amazon

RIYL: Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, Brothers Grimm’s fairy tales, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians.

Bone Music (The Burning Girl Series, Book 1), by Christopher Rice

The hunted becomes the hunter. I’ll have what she’s having!

Ah, to be the son of occult/horror author Anne Rice. I imagine his sweet life to have been an Adams Family-like existence in a lush, haunted mansion in the French Quarter. What better to augment his sweet life than a book that confirms he’s just about as talented a writer as his mother?

Bone Music starts in a flashback to Charlotte Rowe as a teenager. As a baby she was kidnapped by a serial killer couple, and rescued years later. Her mother was murdered during the kidnapping, and her father exploited her story to cash in with a sordid series of horror books and even cheesier movies. Charlotte tapped out of that life, leaving behind her father, her identity, and her stalkers, to start a new life under an assumed identity. As an adult, she lives an isolated existence in Arizona, her only contact with civilization weekly visits to a therapist. After being talked into trying a new experimental medication, all hell breaks loose as she’s attacked by a motorcycle gang and her stalker breaks into her home, all within a few hours. On top of that, she learns she has newfound abilities that give her frightening strength and resilience. She flees her home to try to put together the pieces of what the heck happened and why.

What could have been horrific torture porn turns out to be a top notch thriller where she gains loyal allies, combats shadowy corporations, figures out the mystery of why she was targeted, and becomes the hunter in a cat and mouse game with another at-large serial killer. | 455 pages | $5.99 Amazon, $0 Kindle Unlimited

RIYL: Michael Crichton, Dan Brown, Richard Bachman’s (Stephen King) The Running Man, Thomas Harris’ The Silence Of the Lambs.

Children of Blood and Bone (Legacy of Orïsha #1), by Tomi Adeyemi

Reign In Blood: A rich fantasy world bogged down by brutality.

When this debut novel rocketed to the top of the bestseller list and author Nigerian-American Tomi Adeyemi is featured on magazine covers asking, “The next J.K. Rowling?” I was cautiously excited. With credentials of a Harvard literature degree and further studies in West African mythology and religion in Brazil, I expected some well-planned world building, savage social criticism and sparkling writing. I believe the book succeeded in at least two of those expectations.

Adeyemi does indeed create a compelling world called Orïsha a fantasy world that draws from the rich traditions of West African folklore and mythology, particularly the Yoruba religion based on Nigerian oral traditions, which calls the various manifestations of spirits Orishas. While there are at least 400 + 1 manifestations of Orishas, in Adeyemi’s fictional Orïsha world, there are ten deities, each with a clan of followers, the once powerful maji possessing abilities specific to the deity they follow. However, King Saran had a major beef with magic, and we piece together the story of how the King obtained a black metal called majacite that cripples the maji’s powers, massacred them, stole three key artifacts, and managed to wipe out magic from the lands. So what once was a vibrant world where magic was a part of everyday life is now a dreary society where diviners, the descendents of majis, are subjugated, heavily taxed second class citizens that resemble countless colonialist and Jim Crow situations throughout real life history.

So far so good, this is a compelling setting that can educate young adults about African culture while adding a refreshingly Afro-centric fantasy world. Many are aligning Adeyemi with the Afrofuturism canon alongside Samuel Delany, Octavia Butler and more recently Nnedi Okorafor and Tochi Onyebuchi. While this could be a future world, to me, the complete lack of technology suggests that this is a fantasy universe, though one tied to Yoruba traditions. Either way, the potential for this fantasy world is awe inspiring.

While the pacing is brisk, exploding into action within a couple pages, and the writing is economical, there’s some significant issues. Throughout the book the first person narrative switches off between Zélie Adebola, descendent of a powerful Reaper maji of the Iku clan, Princess Amari and Prince Inan. Each character has been traumatized, and they re-live the moments of brutality in their dreams and inner voices. Repeatedly. Constantly. Over and over, to the point where both Zélie and Amari would likely be diagnosed with PTSD in real life. Zélie ruminates on the horrific murder of her mother during the maji massacre from when she was a young child, while Amari is haunted by her friend/servant Binta’s murder at the hands of her father. Inan, conflicted between his loyalty to his father, sense of duty (the “duty before self” mantra is repeated 37 times in the book) to the kingdom, and the obvious evil intentions behind his father’s orders (“Kill the girl. Kill magic.” is his second favorite mantra, repeated nearly as often).

The obsessive single-mindedness of each of these characters is so similar that it’s hard to keep track of which point of view we’re reading at any given time. The tone is uniformly overwrought, with the characters experiencing primarily extreme emotions of fear and hatred, with extra helpings of distrust and betrayal. Adeyemi does attempt to bring a couple lighter moments of respite later on, and even some romance, but both are thoroughly unconvincing, since the primary mission of the book seems to be to convey just how hopelessly grim and harrowing life is with the relentless violence and even torture. Clearly this book also operates as an allegory for the Black American experience. It’s hard to read about fictional suffering. It’s even harder to live in the real world where you’re judged by an essential quality like the color of your skin. This isn’t the place to compare James Baldwin’s “The Fire Next Time” to a work of fiction, but Baldwin (for example) empowers his readers while also laying out the oppressive racism of his times. The thing I hoped to see beyond strength in suffering, power in enduring, is the hope for a better or different world found in so much Afrofuturist writing. Post-magic Orïsha shouldn’t have to be a completely joyless world in order to convey the struggles of the characters. Take N. K. Jemisin’s The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, for example. The book’s heroine Yeine, like Zélie, mourns the murder of her mother. While she too struggles with the allure of hatred and revenge, here inner life is much more complex and rich, and her story ultimately more uplifting.

So what will be the lesson for the intended young adult audience? Life is a horrible, neverending parade of violent ordeals to be suffered through until you meet a brutal death? I get that life is hard and often unjust, and we’re enduring a particularly dark period in politics and racism. Real life reminds us of that daily. We don’t necessarily have to be bludgeoned with these truths. Even in times like this when issues are reduced to the most simple extremes in tweets and headlines, it is still possible for literature to address serious, important issues while still retaining hope, wonder, and if they choose, humor. There are brief glimpses of a better future within Legacy of Orïsha #1, but not enough where I’m sure that I feel compelled to see what happens in the next two books. However it seems this series is destined to be a cultural milestone, with a movie already in the works, and the next book will certainly be greeted with massive anticipation and popularity. Adeyemi clearly has talent and potential, so on the chance that she grows as a writer, I’ll mostly likely read the next one. We’ve been bathed in blood, now how about throwing us a bone? | 537 pages | $9.99 Amazon

RIYL:  Leigh Bardugo, Sabaa Tahir, Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games.

Feltham Made Me, by Paolo Sedazzari (2017)

If Trainspotting were an oral history.

What if Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting and it’s sequel Porno were told as an oral history? Author Paolo Sedazzari answers that question by taking extensive interviews with Dermott Collins, Peter Wyatt and Jerry Zmuda, three ordinary yobs who were friends (and frenemies) since primary school in Feltham, the west London Borough of Hounslow. While not exactly a hip town, it can claim Queen’s Freddie Mercury and Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page as residents for a time. These guys were no rock stars, though they did form a band called Septimus Grundy that was heavily influenced by The Jam.

Teachers, parents, friends, enemies, colleagues, acquaintances and long-suffering romantic interests were interviewed, so the men’s stories were told with little sentiment, warts and all. In fact, it’s mostly warts, particularly regarding Dermott, who’s closest friend outside of the group is a dangerous drug dealer felon named Cobra whose favorite catchphrases were “shaking with the snake” and “you cunt do you want a slapping?” which was tattooed on his chest. Not exactly an inspiring bunch, but it gives a really vivid, realistic account of what it was like in a working class English town in the 70s through 90s. The 30 year timespan gives the story an epic quality, despite the relatively ordinary, if sometimes alarmingly violent, nature of their lives.

The casual attitude toward violence in England is a common theme in accounts of the 60s and 70s in particular. I grew up in an economically depressed, working class industrial town myself, but in the U.S. in the 70s and 80s, but I never experienced the brutal violence that seemed to loom over everyone as an every day threat like they did in the UK. That’s a mystery that this book may offer some clues toward solving, but ultimately my takeaway was that it was an excellent time for music, but a truly, profoundly shitty time to be growing up working class. | 374 pages | $3.79 Amazon, $0 Kindle Unlimited

RIYL: Irvine Welsh’s Trainspotting, Legs McNeil & Gillian McCain’s Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk, Jonathan Coe’s The Rotter’s Club.

Punk Avenue: Inside the New York City Underground, 1972-1982 by Phil Marcade (2017)

I’ll read any book that has to do with pre-punk, punk, proto-metal and all kinds of other music. And let me tell you, I’ve slogged through some excruciating duds, with the determination of a rat making its way through a garbage dump looking for that one tasty morsel of new information. At the beginning I feared this book would be like that. An also-ran/hanger-on writes badly about the drugs they took and the celebrities they sucked off in dirty bathrooms. Fortunately, Philippe Marcade is much more than that. Yes, his early adventures are pretty inconsequential anecdotes, as he defects from college and his military duties in France for an On The Road style trip across America. Having gotten that out of the way after the first third of the book, things pick up as he starts to get involved in the music scene, develops a sincere relationship with Johnny Thunders, and forms his own band, The Senders.

I had heard of The Senders, but assumed they were just also-rans who played CBGBs and Max’s. He was also a big fan of Mink Deville, who were clearly talented, but I could never really get into them. It was a big shock when I listened to the Outrageous & Contagious compilation and learned they were pretty great. As a glam punk garage band, they weren’t groundbreaking like some of their peers, but they had some great songs. And best of all, Marcade’s voice is a fantastic, gutteral combination of Bon Scott and Alex Harvey. It’s a damn shame their EP Seven Song Super Single (1980) and debut album, Retour a l’Envoyeur (1981) remain out of print, with most of the songs missing from the compilation.

As you can tell, clearly the best part of the book for me was discovering his band. This is an autobiography, not a great historical account, though there are some fun details about some players in the scene. His crush on Debbie Harry is predictable yet somehow charming. His treatment of women is not always great as is par for the 70s, but his description of Nancy Spungen is surprisingly empathetic. The accounts of drug use and addiction are soul crushingly boring as always, but eh, that’s rock ‘n’ roll I suppose. At its best, you can imagine being there, looking over his shoulder as he strides the streets of the gritty 1970s era Bowery. | 288 pages | $6.00 Amazon

Symptoms of Being Human, by Jeff Garvin (2016)

I don’t understand why anyone would dismiss a book because it’s YA. We were all teenagers, and in our minds, at least partially, that teenager still lives on. So I still appreciate a good coming of age story, or simply stories with young characters. It’s a painful, but also vivid time to be alive.

With this book, I actually learned a few things. Being gender fluid is confusing enough for people experiencing it, so it’s nice to have it explained to those unfamiliar with the concept. Garvin does a good job of making Riley’s character easy to relate to, clearing out a path through the confusion and bullying and teen angst to empathy.

One of the key passages that makes succinct sense: “The world isn’t binary. Everything isn’t black or white, yes or no. Sometimes it’s not a switch, it’s a dial. And it’s not even a dial you can get your hands on; it turns without your permission or approval.” That can apply to pretty much all sexuality.

I’d subtract points for the story, which at times can be frustrating because very little happens at various points when Riley is spinning his/her wheels. But the conclusion is satisfying enough that I’d recommend this. And I don’t think this is a spoiler, for those wondering if Riley is a boy or a girl? None of yer damn business! | 357 pages | $9.99 Amazon

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl: A Memoir, by Carrie Brownstein (2015)

I’ve been a fan of Sleater-Kinney since I first heard them in 1995, and wrote rave reviews of most of their albums through their career. My admiration for Carrie Brownstein has continued to grow as she explored side projects, blog writing, and of course blossomed into a sketch comedy genius with Fred Armisen in Portlandia.

Those wanting a detailed account of how she got into music and who her influences are (Richard Baluyut of Versus and Christina Billotte of Slant 6) won’t be disappointed. She explains why they picked the name Sleater-Kinney, which sounds like a law firm or a hospital. “But in the moniker could be whatever we wanted it to be. It could embody whatever and whoever we were.”

Yet in her memoir, she doesn’t readily spill all the goods. Meaning, she still holds some cards close to her chest, reluctant to share all of her private matters. That’s her right, but I feel putting “memoir” in the title is a bit of a misrepresentation, as it’s pretty much exclusively about the band. Yes, she discusses her relationship with bandmate Corin Tucker in the early days and their breakup. She touches on her family history, her father’s absence and belated coming out years later. Her being unceremoniously outed in a major music publication. I’ve always admired how Brownstein’s demeanor navigated a wobbly balance between an awkward, gangly young woman and a strutting, badass gender neutral guitar hero. Yet she never actually discusses whether she’s gay, bi or gender fluid, and does not talk about any relationships after Tucker. Here’s my memoir, but my life is none of your damn business. Okay, so Carrie is all business all the time it appears. She also talks about dealing with frequent panic attacks, but we never find out what the cause is, if she ever got a handle on it, or anything. So many questions unanswered.

Apparently everything worked out, at least as far as Sleater Kinney had a triumphant reunion, album and tour, she wrote a book, and had eight successful seasons with Portlandia (the series concludes this year). However not a word is mentioned about the show, nor of Fred. Not a single word. I don’t know if Fred didn’t want to be included, or she’s saving it for her next book, but I feel slightly cheated. Nevertheless, Carrie is awesome, so I don’t have the heart to dock more than one star. | 256 pages | $9.99 Amazon

Trouble Boys: The True Adventures of the Replacements, by Bob Mehr (2015)

There’s a saying that warns you not to meet your heroes. For good reason. If someone is serving a positive role in your life as a hero, you probably don’t want to learn about their shortcomings. It’s why I was never interested in interviewing musicians. Anything they have to say is generally best said through their music. Nevertheless, I feel compelled to read these band bios once they’re out there, even though I sometimes regret it. This is such a case. I remember hearing “I’m In Trouble,” “Color Me Impressed” and “Unsatisfied” as an early teen, and thinking this was my music, for my time. Before that, my favorite bands were older, unattainable, making music for people who were older or more worldly than I. But the Replacements sounded like a bunch of losers who just lived down the street. A few years later some of them literally were down the street (I went to college, not stalking).

I’d heard about their inconsistent live shows and legendary acts of self-sabotage. But man, lifting up the rug on this band reveals some creepy crawlies that I didn’t even expect. No individual incident was that surprising or shocking, but overall, the Replacements might have been the biggest bunch of misanthropic assholes that ever existed. Except for Bob Stinson, who was just tragically damaged from childhood abuse. I won’t get into the details, as they’re just exhausting. Bob Mehr did a thorough job researching and interviewing, and isn’t really his fault that their story is excruciating and maddening. The shit they pulled on the hapless people who collided with their orbit was not rebellious or punk rock. They were just drunk-ass bullies, who betrayed everyone who was loyal to them.

I used to think the Replacements deserved more attention, more success. But after reading the book, no matter how great they were, they deserved no more, and no less than what they got. | 521 pages | $11.99 Amazon

Purchased and in my queue:

All Gates Open: The Story of Can by Rob Young
Strange Practice by Vivian Shaw
Respect Yourself: Stax Records and the Soul Explosion by Robert Gordon
The Shambling Guide to New York City by Mur Lafferty

The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger
Chief Inspector Gamache series by Louise Penny

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