Just Kids - Patti Smith

This will be my first and brief book review. I'm not about to dismantle the whole book.

I got this book from my ever so lovely girlfriend before we went on our annual island retreat. I will write a little something on this trip once i have uploaded the pictures. I have just finished it yesterday and wanted to share my opinion with those willing to read it.

This book is a tale of two people who share a kind of love that few of us ever get to experience.

I consider myself one of the lucky individuals who met their soulmate and have someone to share that kind of love with. Muse, lover, best friend and motivation, she is all that to me!

The story, which is autobiographical, is set in a 1960's 1970's New York, where anything seems possible. A time where you could walk into a bar and see Jimi Hendrix sitting at a table. 

If you are yourself even the least bit of a creative soul, this book is highly contagious and i warn you that it will make you want to drop whatever it is you are doing to go live like they did.

I realize that a story like Smith's is not the standard and that besides her there were thousands of youths trying to accomplish the same thing she did. As much as i can romanticize this lifestyle, i know that it is also a harsh existence and that nowadays is even more difficult.

The book is a portrait of here relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe and their struggle to make it as an artist. Smith gives us a true and tender sketch of New York in that period and opens up about how she underwent the transition between the flower-power utopia and the brutal reality that got thrown in their faces as they see how many of their heroes die around them.

The work is honest and in it's honesty reveals so many secret and methods of how she works as an artist.

I would recommend this book to anyone who is even the slightest bit interested in art,music,poetry and life in general. As i was reading it i often contemplated how i would write out my own life.

I came to the conclusion that to make such a story readable and interesting is not an easy thing to do.

Props to Smith for doing it in such a pleasant way!