fr3y's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny informative reflective sad medium-paced

4.5


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the_escapist's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective sad fast-paced

4.0

An entertaining book about terrible people.

I'm not saying 'terrible people' fondly; they do some truly awful things, not just to themselves but to important people in their lives, people who work for them, and innocent passers-by. Sometimes there is implied or even explicit remorse, but more often than not there isn't. The way that it's written doesn't tell you as the reader what to think about their actions and the same mistakes they keep making over and over again. Even though they do learn some lessons, from the way that their perspectives come across, it still feels like they've got a long way to go and there's still a lot of glamourisation of the sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll lifestyle.

So my advice for this is not to expect coming out liking any members of the band. I was, on many occasions, disgusted by their thoughts and actions and the sheer amount of casual misogyny and treating people around them terribly. But it is a really entertaining book, like watching a car crash in motion, except that it keeps crashing over and over and over again. It feels authentic to the psychology of a lot of bands who made it big during this era and it was a very difficult book to put down. 

I liked how the chapters alternated perspectives from each member of the band as well as a few chapters from people who weren't members of the band, and the way it allowed the unreliability of each narrator to come through. It added a lot of interest with the blurred lines between what really happened and what only might have done, and trying to deduce whose side of the story (if any) you think is more reliable.

I'm familiar with a few of Mötley Crüe's songs, but not much of a fan of them, and I still got a kick out of reading this even though I'd never want to go anywhere near people like this in real life.

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