Rating: 
Summary: This book has it all...nothing is left out!
Review: Courtney Love and I are like night and day, entirely different. Although I've never been a big fan of her music, I've always been intrigued by her life, and I would like to add that I enjoyed her very much in "The People vs. Larry Flynt". She did more before she was 20 years old than most people do in an entire lifetime. This book isn't a disgrace to literature as one reviewer says, at least not in my opinion. To me, it's inspirational. She had a horrible, horrible childhood. She didn't receive the love from her Mother and Father that most other children do. It seems she never had a real sense of family. I feel very bad for her about that, although I don't believe that Courtney is the type of person who wants sympathy. This woman was up against insurmountable odds from day one, and not only survived it, but went on to achieve a great amout of success, and she did it (and is still doing it) on her own. I have nothing but respect and admiration for her. Even if you don't have a clue as to who Courtney Love is (which is unlikely), you'll enjoy this book. Interesting doesn't even begin to describe it, but most of all it's an inspiration to everyone, especially women. I guarantee that you won't be able to put it down.
Rating: 
Summary: A Friend Does Not A Biographer Make
Review: It's easy to see why any author would want to write the biography of Courtney Love--a public figure surrounded by rumors, suspicions, and media attention galore. She is also probably one of the most challenging people to get a straight story out of. What was her real name: Love Michelle Harrison? Michelle Love Harrison? Courtney Michelle Harrison? One can only speculate. And that is just in her infancy. From there, she gets passed around by her hippie parents: a Grateful Dead roadie and psychologist of adopted origins; schlepped off to live with relatives, friends--whoever will take care of her, and sent to a reform school during her teens. After leaving and escaping from institutions (at various times she does both), she spends time stripping in Tokyo and Thailand, traveling in the United Kingdom, and toying with the idea of starting a band with future Riot Grrls and friends Jennifer Finch and Kat Bjelland. From there, she meets Eric Erlandson, creates her band Hole (no, the sexual connotations were not the reason for the name), all-the-while becoming attracted to Seattle-based Nirvana front man Kurt Cobain. You know the rest, or at least you know some of it because there are probably as many versions out there as there are people telling them. Poppy Z. Brite's is just another story to add to your collection.What killed it for me was probably the prologue. Poppy Z. Brite explains how Courtney Love had rented a home in Louisiana where she was recording her third album "Celebrity Skin". She talks about how Love called her up and the two went out for the evening. Apparently, this encounter inspired Brite to write the book. She claims that she did not have Love's complete approval for the book, but that having her as a friend helped the writing process. Right there, the reader knows that he or she is not getting an unbiased opinion. You can't be someone's friend and be a nonpartisan recorder of their life. And normally, that would be fine: write the Official Courtney Love-approved biography of Courtney Love. Isn't that what Michael Azzerad did with COME AS YOU ARE? However, Brite then goes on to state that she is not going to defend or condemn Love but simply chronicle her life in the most accurate manner possible. That is where she lost all of her credibility. Throughout the book, Poppy Z. Brite constantly defends Love and sarcastically puts down her detractors, with a few harmless exceptions. Love's father is portrayed as self-centered and senile from the first page, Kat Bjelland kicks Courtney out of her own band (twice) and claims to want to kill her (although somehow the two end up friends after Kurt's death), even the L.A. Department of Social Services is out to steal Frances Bean. While I highly doubt the claims of Love-bashers that Courtney turned Cobain onto heroin and drove him to suicide, I also doubt that Courtney was always the victim. What is more, there were too many gaps in the story of a woman whose life story is far too complex to be told in a mere 230 pages. We find out when Courtney lost her virginity, hear tales of her being tied up and beaten with a fish by a crazed drama/drag-queen, and lots of other steamy details, but life slows down suddenly when Love starts her band and releases her first record. The book just spreads to thin in some of these parts. What's the meaning behind songs like the vitriolic "Violet" and the bittersweet "Doll Parts". The gaps get even wider after Cobain's death, and by the end, we are left to assume that Love will maintain her relationship with stable, sweet co-star Edward Norton (The People vs. Larry Flynt). A far cry from where she is today, although fair enough given that Brite's tale ended in 1996. Overall, I found the writing style of this book to be poor as well. Referring to Love's crush on Cobain as a "girl-boner" isn't exactly high-quality journalism. Quotes from firsthand sources are few in this book and Brite fills in what she doesn't know with her own judgments about the people in Love's tumultuous life. Perhaps what can be gained from this book is a sense of understanding of a woman whose aggressive persona stems from frustration at having been held-down for so many years throughout her childhood that she feels the need to lash out any threat against her dignity. My advice to potential readers is to read this book along with WHO KILLED KURT COBAIN? While both accounts are highly biased and border on fiction, somewhere in the middle the truth likely lingers.
Rating: 
Summary: The girl with the most cake
Review: Courtney Love has always been hard to interpret. Though this book does not cover the past six years of her life having been published in 1997, it is a comprehensive look at her life until then. From her beginings as a unwanted child and a teenage stripper, to her life after Kurt Cobain's suicide this book is full of detail. It is certainly on the sensational side. As well, it does not try to seriously analyze the events of her life. However, it is highly entertaining and intimate. Before Kurt Cobain's suicide and the release of Live through this, she was, by some, regarded as merely Kurt Cobain's wife. After that, she came into her own. This book does a good job of relating how she accomplished that. The fact that this book ends with 1997 makes you sorry. It would be interesting to read the author's account of the recent years of Courtney's life. After reading this book, you see the truth of what the adult Courtney told her mother: ''The only parents who could drive someone to celebrity are ones who aren't there''. Indeed, her parents were not there as much as they should have been. Courtney Love's life has always been a soap opera and probably always will be. Her latest drug scandal in October only serves to prove that. She is much more than just a interesting personality, though. Just listen to Live through this or particularly, Celebrity Skin. They prove that she is certainly talented. Her first solo album should prove this as well. This is a very readable and entertaining book. If you are interested in Courtney Love at all, read this book. You will come away even more interested.
Rating:
Summary: Misinformation and Glorification
Review: In the last paragraph of this book's foreword, author Poppy Z. Brite states: "The purpose of this book is not to condemn or defend Courtney Love - everyone seems to feel obliged to do one or the other - but to chronicle the first thirty-two years of her fascinating life as accurately as possible." Certainly a noble cause. And it's especially impressive that she'd attempt to write a nonbiased biography, being Courtney's friend. This is one of the reasons I think this book fails as an accurate and unbiased chronicle. You can't turn to the media for solid information on Courtney Love, because there are several different versions of every story about her. And you can't turn to Courtney Love for solid information on herself, because she's the one that gave the media all that misinformation. (This is a woman who's provided three conflicting accounts of her own NAME: over the years, she's variously claimed her birthname to be Courtney Michelle Harrison, Love Michelle Harrison, and Michelle Love Harrison.) The publishers certainly must have sensed sensationalism. If they'd put an unflattering picture of Love on the cover of the book, it would utterly change the meaning of the phrase "The Real Story." But they chose to put a glowing, smiling, recent photo of her on the cover. For this reason, the book itself screams "shamelessly authorized biography" even before you open it up. I have no idea how much of this material is true and how much is false. I'm not really a hardcore fan of Courtney Love, so I haven't read enough Courtneylore to know how many different versions of every single story there are. I am, however, a huge Smashing Pumpkins fan, so I personally can account for the misinformation about lead singer Billy Corgan in this book. For one thing, Brite states that Billy is one inch shorter than Courtney. That would make Courtney six and a half feet tall. This is undoubtedly one of the many "facts" Brite obtained directly from Courtney and placed in the book unquestioningly, without doing any backup research to see if she might be lying. (In almost any major article on the Smashing Pumpkins you can find, the journalist makes some comment - however fleeting - about Billy Corgan's surprising tallness.) Courtney has often talked about how Billy comforted her after Kurt Cobain's death. For a few years after the fact, she even made it sound as if they'd had sex. Only recently did she admit that they didn't have sex, but said Billy did help her a lot in moving on with her life. In "The Real Story," he has no role in the comforting process at all. Being as how he's never said anything about it, Courtney is once again the only source of information - and Brite takes her current word for it without doing the background research and finding all the other, conflicting, things she's said on the subject. Finally, Celebrity Skin. Probably anyone reading this review is familiar with the infamous Celebrity Skin wars, in which Billy and Courtney went back and forth in the media over how large of a role he had in making the album. In response to his assertation that he'd written six songs, Courtney said that he'd barely done any work at all. In "The Real Story," he calls her up, offering to help her on the album, and doesn't stop helping her until he's completely exhausted. At no point does Courtney ask him to leave. In various other versions of the story, SHE calls HIM up, asking him to help, and only lets him do some of the work, despite his willingness to do more. There are most definitely more, but I don't know enough about Hole or Nirvana to point them out. It is, however, dubious that Kurt Cobain would have an "obsession" with guns. And then there's Hank Harrison, who's been given all the three-dimensional personality of a comic book supervillain. Like another reviewer mentioned, every man in Courtney's life is portrayed as having been bent on doing her in, while she's always well-meaning. This is the kind of problematic manuscript that results from trying to write a biography about a friend of yours - and assuming that your friend is always going to impart to you "the REAL story" about her life. This book says more about Courtney Love than any factual biography could. Does she really see herself as the victim she's portrayed as in this book? If she didn't before, why did she suddenly change her perception of herself at the time of this book's publication - 1997? And why in God's name does she feel the need to lie about stupid, insignificant things like her birthname or Billy Corgan's height? Whether or not she was in fact administered LSD at the age of 4 (or age 2, or 3, as she's claimed in various interviews), this account screams of a little girl whose painful childhood prompted her to escape into her own dreamworld - and whose talkative nature invited countless music journalists into that world.
Rating:
Summary: in awe of the woman..never knew she was good
Review: Every thing i've ever read on Courtney Love talks about how bad she is, (...), well, after this, she is my icon. She knew what she wanted from the beginning and she knew how to get it, and this book holds your hand and shows you what she's been through, how she made it, and it also touches on Kurt. I started this book because I had a project to do, and we were allowed to choose any person we wanted as long as they had a biography, and i figured "hey, nobody will know what to think when i say Courtney Love, so i did, and i thoroghly enjoyed reading this book, it was very well written (Poppy Z. writes other wonderful stuff), and i recommend it to any rock loving fan, it was a great book.
Rating:
Summary: True or not, it's a compelling read.....
Review: While the authenticity of every piece of information here is debatable, author Poppy Z. Brite acknowledges when matters are hearsay and whether or not she heard them from Courtney herself. Besides, Courtney is notorious for giving journalists inconsistent information, so there could not possibly be a "definitive" Courtney book unless Courtney herself wrote it. However, what distinguishes this Courtney Love biography from all the others is that Poppy actually built up a rapport with Courtney before composing this book (as she explains in the foreward), gaining Courtney's trust and go-ahead to compose this biography. Courtney has had an extremely interesting life, and this book follows in detail her days of stripping in Asia, becoming Kurt's widow, achieving great success with her breakthrough album 'Live Through This', and everything in between. No biographer could possibly be free of bias, and Poppy Z. Brite did get swept up in the pathos of Kurt's death as it devastated Courtney, but understandably so. But she is usually veracious, and does give a balanced account of Courtney's life. Poppy does not merely speculate and stir further trouble for Courtney. This is not a "tabloid" book - it is just as much a memoir as it is a biography, as Courtney contributed to it by telling Poppy her fascinating life story. Arguably, this book is patchy, but I believe it could really be no other way. Everyone in Courtney's circle has their own version of what happened, and some of these versions are inconsistent with Courtney's, but Poppy Z. Brite always includes these variances as completely as possible. Like all biographies, this book is not gospel and the reader is advised to keep an objective eye at all times. It is a gripping read, impossible to put down, and Poppy's writing shimmers as she chronologizes Courtney's past with sympathy, while keeping her perspective intact. Note: there are 16 pages of colour photos of Miss. Love and her friends and family (including Kurt Cobain and Frances Bean) at the centre of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Pretty Bad
Review: I've never read any of Brite's other books, and this one really doesn't make me want to. I've read it several times, each giving me an even queesier feeling. The book stinks of bullsh*t, especially when one knows Courtney's past behaviors as chronicled in periodicals. That's pretty much all one needs to know to be able to judge her character, which is one of a psychopathic, money hungry compulsive liar. And, since Brite seems to have gotten her info straight from the horse's mouth, it seems dubious this is a trustable source. Even if it all was true, it still doesn't do much for Courtney but make her look like a perrenial loser victim. One only needs to look at her criminal record to see she's a professional manipulator. Oh, not to mention her 180 trip from trashy junkie stripper to hollywood crack actress who plays herself and spends tons of money on plastic surgery, hair extensions and clothes in an attempt to... what? Get people to like her? This book reads as about as plastic and fake as the person it chronicles.
Rating: 
Summary: More auto than bio
Review: Reads like Courtney Love either paid to have the book written or else was standing over Poppy Z. Brite and dictating as Brite typed. But a great read if you can get through the sugar-coating. There's some amazing rewriting of history and back-handed compliments apparently straight from Courtney. Worth the read just for the accidental insights. Meanwhile, Melissa Rossi's "Cournty Love: Queen of Noise" remains the best read on the subject.
Rating:
Summary: A Few "Holes" In The Story....
Review: I just finished reading this book, and while it didn't go into ALL the details I was interested in, Loves Hollywood experiences (barely covered) plastic surgery (non-existent), and her days with Kurt (sugar coated), I STILL couldn't put it down. Not necessarily because it's great, but because the subject is interesting.This book would've been far better if it had been edited further. It would've meant no skipped chapters, therefore dispensing with areas mired in unnecessary details.......... Brite becomes quite dull as she babbles painfully long-winded chapters dedicated to every boring and picayune detail of Loves early childhood, and schooling. Then she glosses over relevant subjects that should've been expanded on, while completely deleting major areas of interest altogether. Although I enjoyed this book despite the flaws, it left me feeling somewhat cheated................ I will still recommend you read this book. Why? It's about the life of Courtney Love! Even if you find her vaguely interesting, or you're a devout devotee, you'll STILL find this book an entertaining read, cover to cover, because of the subject matter, and when NOT writing drivel filler chapters, the author writes well. I will say however, that I found the Melissa Rossi book far more interesting and detailed where it counts.
Rating:
Summary: It's a very good book
Review: It's a good read! I read it in one day! I could'nt put it down!
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