etierce's review
5.0
When reading this book I was faced with the moral dilemma of whether or not Kurt would be ok with fans reading this. While it is the utmost intimate look into his psyche and songwriting it is also supposed to be his personal journals. One of the last entries he talks about someone stealing his things and how it is a “rape” of his personal thoughts.
beloved_bridget's review
there are so many things I want to talk about but I think it would very quickly get out of hand. too many thoughts
mcgbreads's review
5.0
I just loved reading this. I think I might have fallen in love with his mind and how he saw things and his opinions. He was so cool, and I really hope he knew that. Loved the drawings and the crazy stories as well, most of his notes made me laugh, they were very dark humored and sarcastic. Some other things, like those parts in which he describes his decease and how awful and helpless he felt just made cry and my heart broke a little bit too, I could really feel his pain and his anger because for so many years there was no relief for him. I am so glad that someone decided to publish this, really, thank you, whoever you are.
Needless to say that if I don't have this book in its physical form before I die, I'm not gonna be happy and I will haunt every single one of these books and prevent anyone from buying them. Jesus... that sounds like a lot of work, but you get my point.
Needless to say that if I don't have this book in its physical form before I die, I'm not gonna be happy and I will haunt every single one of these books and prevent anyone from buying them. Jesus... that sounds like a lot of work, but you get my point.
dananoel's review
5.0
I'm not quite sure why anyone would read it if they weren't a Nirvana fan. I found this incredible, although at times I thought I was reading something that was not meant for me or anybody else. His thoughts and opinions about abortion, rape, politics, punk rock, and "oppressors" were fascinating to me. He was a real genius. But I don't see any evidence as to why he killed himself. He talked about his stomach issues, about buying a gun, about his heroin addiction -- but nothing to really say that he was going to kill himself toward the end. All in all this was brilliant, and it made me realize how much the world lost because of his absence.
bekvalaclea's review
As a lot of people before me said it, you can’t rate someones private thoughts. And due to the nature who published this book that makes me even more dislike the thought of his thoughts out in the world. But as everyone else, I was curious and wanted to know what was happening inside that mind.
His talk about suicide and mental health was really hard knowing what will happen. I love his letters to his friends because he wasn’t trying to make sense and he was unapologetically him. I liked reading lyrics of songs that I know today. I now feel like I know some part of him which makes me love and appreciate him and his music even more. The last pages hit me really hard. Overall, a martyr's life that led him to amazing art and immortality
moonyreadsbystarlight's review
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
3.5
3.5? I feel like this is a weird thing to rate.
The Kurt Cobain journals are something I've been interested in for a while, but just now got to. And I came out of it with pretty mixed feelings.
This was mostly photocopied pages of his journals and other papers. It had rough drafts of songs, weird sketches, music video ideas, playlists, and best album lists. There were also letters (some sent and some never sent), beginnings of dark short stories, and journal entries. Some context was given about parts, but it was pretty minimal. The journals didn't even have an introduction or discussion of who had put these documents together.
The biggest thing I did get out of this was seeing more about his experience with stomach issues and chronic pain. He describes the toll that this took on his mental health and was the catalyst for his addiction. In a similar vein, it was profound and disturbing to see how he was treated by the press amidst these issues. It gave me a lot of perspective on the things I've heard about him, especially towards the end of his life.
However, seeing so much in the book with little context made me really question whether or not this should have even been published like this. Like if someone found my partial rough drafts of stories that I wrote when I was 20, I would not want them to be photocopied and spread around posthumously. There were also several things that just would have really benefited from more context or explanation than was given in the notes at the end. I wonder how much of it he would reword and rework, give context to, or omit altogether (especially with bits like the ableism in many parts; he did have big moral convictions around social injustice so I can't help but wonder what he would change or correct if he'd had proper education about it).
It was an interesting read, dark, hard to be in his head (the poor guy had mostly water placements all over his astrology chart). I'm interested to know more about him as a person and artist, but the jury is still out on whether or not this is a really good way to learn about it.
The Kurt Cobain journals are something I've been interested in for a while, but just now got to. And I came out of it with pretty mixed feelings.
This was mostly photocopied pages of his journals and other papers. It had rough drafts of songs, weird sketches, music video ideas, playlists, and best album lists. There were also letters (some sent and some never sent), beginnings of dark short stories, and journal entries. Some context was given about parts, but it was pretty minimal. The journals didn't even have an introduction or discussion of who had put these documents together.
The biggest thing I did get out of this was seeing more about his experience with stomach issues and chronic pain. He describes the toll that this took on his mental health and was the catalyst for his addiction. In a similar vein, it was profound and disturbing to see how he was treated by the press amidst these issues. It gave me a lot of perspective on the things I've heard about him, especially towards the end of his life.
However, seeing so much in the book with little context made me really question whether or not this should have even been published like this. Like if someone found my partial rough drafts of stories that I wrote when I was 20, I would not want them to be photocopied and spread around posthumously. There were also several things that just would have really benefited from more context or explanation than was given in the notes at the end. I wonder how much of it he would reword and rework, give context to, or omit altogether (especially with bits like the ableism in many parts; he did have big moral convictions around social injustice so I can't help but wonder what he would change or correct if he'd had proper education about it).
It was an interesting read, dark, hard to be in his head (the poor guy had mostly water placements all over his astrology chart). I'm interested to know more about him as a person and artist, but the jury is still out on whether or not this is a really good way to learn about it.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Ableism, Abortion, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Medical trauma, Drug use, Chronic illness, Sexism, Eating disorder, and Drug abuse
While the racism and sexism were there because he spoke out against them, the ableism was there in a lot of the writing, including the r-slur (unfortunately common for the time). There is also a lot of weird graphic violence in the short stories.amelody's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Drug abuse, Drug use, Suicidal thoughts, Cursing, and Chronic illness
Minor: Vomit, Violence, Homophobia, Sexual content, and Racism
bellaleimgruber's review against another edition
dark
emotional
funny
informative
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
4.0