Reviews tagging 'Drug abuse'

Just Kids by Patti Smith

18 reviews

emtay's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

"Why can't I write something that would awake the dead?" (279)

This may not be Smith's endeavor in Just Kids, having accepted that the immortality of art does not extend to its creators. She instead embarks on a Homeric elegy to her dearest friend and lover Robert Mapplethorpe as well as the New York City of their formative artistic years. However, I experienced a personal rebirth. I am renewed in my artistic aspirations, inspired by Smith's succinct candor towards embracing her weaknesses, inspirations, and varied experiences as a young woman. I identified with her and found the hindsight with which she speaks aspirational. When she falls into "trouble" as a teenager:

"I had relieved the boy of responsibility... It is impossibke to exaggerate the sudden calm I felt. An overwhleming sense of mission eclipsed my fears" (18)

or when contracting a venereal disease from her dearest friend. She is loving and loyal. Creatively subversive while adhering to binaries of good and evil, life and death, God and sin. 
The only weakness is in the myriad of unexplained allusions to people in the scene, at some point, there are too many people whose eclectic influence on her life and not enough page. You have to accept the unknowing.
I am reminded of me and Jack. Of a love so deep I am not afraid of losing it. And when the love was young and ripe, I see me and Wes. 

"I was there for these moments, but was so young and preoccupied with my own thoughts that I hardly recognized them as moments" (159).

This is in part my plague. I love my own thoughts to the point of idolization, may this never stop me from living. May I walk alongside them, knowing they are there as a constant companion.

"It seemed being an actor was like being a soldier: you had to sacrifice yourself to the greater good. You had to believe in the cause. I just couldn't surrender myself enough to be an actor" (165).

This is why I have always maintained that the actor does not create the art, they are the conduit. The brush. The paint. They must be a little stupid. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Terminal illness, and Medical content

Minor: Suicide

michita's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative inspiring medium-paced

5.0

Beautiful book, fascinating story. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Drug abuse, Drug use, Terminal illness, and Abortion

andrewhatesham's review against another edition

emotional funny inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Grief

Moderate: Cursing, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Terminal illness, Toxic relationship, Medical content, and Toxic friendship

Minor: Homophobia, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Racism, Suicide, Blood, Death of parent, Pregnancy, Cultural appropriation, and Alcohol

uhhlexiconic's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective fast-paced

4.5

I was moved by how honest this is book is in its depiction of two young artists. Even with the love she has for Mapplethorpe and his memory, Patti Smith is willing to show them both at their best and worst.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse

Moderate: Death and Terminal illness

writingcaia's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

4.75

Could all friends be like Patti and Robert, and all love stories as beautiful, deep and meaningful.
In this vivid and detailed account of their times together we are completely transported to the NY of the late 60’s and 70’s, to the arts and all its people, the muses and creators, the lovers, the dead, and the living. 
The poetry of a time, of a love that went beyond death and now is elevated by Patti’s words.
Deeply moving.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse and Drug use

Moderate: Sexual content

karlasplanet's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Death, and Drug abuse

Minor: Self harm and Suicide

delaneyswann's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

5.0

Patti Smith remembers her life as an artist in New York in the late 60s and early 70s, and her life with Robert Mapplethorpe as they rose to fame. 

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Content Warnings

Minor: Addiction, Death, Drug abuse, Drug use, Sexual content, Suicide, and Terminal illness

pollyflorence's review against another edition

emotional informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug abuse, Terminal illness, and Grief

Moderate: Sexual content, Suicide, and Suicide attempt