Rating: 
Summary: An unforgettable life story.
Review: "And I Don't Want To Live This Life" by Deborah Spungen is the life story of the doomed punk legend Nancy Spungen, seen through her mother's (Deborah Spungen) eyes.In this haunting, heartbreaking tale of parents trying to deal with an out-of-control, apparently schizophrenic, drug-addicted child, Deborah Spungen spares no one. Not Nancy, nor Sid Vicious, not the medical or psychiatric professionals, who gave the Spungen's no help with Nancy, and in some cases even seemed to make things worse. Spungen doesn't forget the educational system, either, which abandoned Nancy. The legal system and media also failed Nancy, which is pointed out adequately enough. Most importantly, Deborah Spungen does not spare herself or her husband. The book is deeply personal (Spungen bravely admits to an affair she had while married). A well-crafted account of the inner workings of a family dealing with a child who is severely psychologically damaged. The reader is left breathlessas Spungen recounts Nancy's rebellious antics, psychotic episodes, and horrifying decent into drug addiction and ulitmately, madness. And then there is the murder. Spungen's description of the days leading up the murder reads (painfully) like a train wreck. The days after the murder are heartwrenching. Surprisingly, Spungen, at various times, paints Sid Vicious in a sympathetic light. Though she offers no excuses for him, she does portray him in an unbiased manner as a confused, naive young man sucked into the world of fame and drugs. This is a book anyone who has had a child murdered, has a family member addicted to drugs, with emotional problems or violent tendencies. Most importantly, this is a book for people who want to look beyond snap judgments and choose to live their lives with empathy for those who can not be understood.
Rating:
Summary: An Eye-Opener Master Piece
Review: This book teaches you more about what type of person Sid Vicious was and tells you the story of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen who is only known because of Sid Vicious and The Sex Pistols. The life of Nancy Spungen is such a sad story and I feel for her family deeply. This book was an eye-opener for the movie Sid & Nancy. The book told the real story of their lives and what really happened in their relationship. It saddened me to read that Sid Vicious was abusive towards Nancy. Nancy was made out to be this horrid girl in the movie and she may have been, I don't know, but she was also a intelligent, caring, young woman when her emotions would allow her to be. She had a sickness that no one really knew about back then and no one wanted to do anything about it. The pain this family went through is astounding and how they got through it all is amazing to me. The love that this mother had for her daughter was so powerful. Most parents these days would just throw their children out on the streets and not deal with a child such as Nancy but this mother stuck with her daughter through thick and thin and did everything she could up until her daughter's last couple of days. This story is very moving and I loved it and would recommend it to anyone, not just Sid & Nancy fans! Nancy Spungen was more than what critics and a movie has portrayed her out to be.
Excellent to read! Has some pictures of Nancy as a baby and a young girl.
Rating:
Summary: The Most Awesome Book Ever!!!
Review: The book i read was awesome. I'm not a big reader, but this was great! I really liked it! My mom turned me on to it and it really made me think. I was sorry, i was sad, i was shocked. Its great for teens and for anyone who listened to the sex pistols. It makes you feel luck to be so normal. It makes mothers with good kids feel glad their kids aren't so bad. It makes mothers with bad kids realize their not the only ones out there with bad kids!
Rating:
Summary: You cannot put it down
Review: Okay, if you think you know all about the Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen then you may just be wrong.This book written by the mother of Nancy is a impossible to put down. No, it's not just a story of a couple of wasters who got into drugs and got what they deserved. It is not like that at all. It's a very sad, moving story about a little girl who lived a sad, lonely, frustrating life filled with violent behaviour and loss of control.It's about a girl who wanted to be normal and happy but was never able to find piece of mind as she was mentally ill as a result of an accident at birth.Help was never that easy to find for Nancy but her family tried every means possible to help the child they loved, only to see her disappear down the road of self destruction and death at the young age of 20. Nancy Spungen lived a lifetime in her short years and was never able to find happiness, maybe until she found Sid Vicious.Vicious, regardless of the name, was not as vicious as people would like to believe.I feel that he lived the same sort of life as Nancy and when they met, they were just two of a kind. But lets not forget the life that the rest of Nancys family had while she was busy attacking them, getting into drugs,running away,swinging from one mood to another and getting her brother and sister onto drugs.They too have suffered and we shouldn't forget that.This book is mainly written about Nancy but it IS the story of the whole family who lived life in fear of a young woman whose life spiralled way out of control.Very moving, very sad and very disturbing.
Rating:
Summary: Not an easy read, but fascinating
Review: I bought this book because I wanted some insight into one of the most enigmatic couples in pop culture history - Sid and Nancy. While Nancy's story as told by her mother was not at all what I might have expected, it did not disappoint. Not knowing about Nancy's horrendous suffering (seemingly equal to that of her family)as baby, child and adolesecent, one would obviously think her last two frenetic years spent with Sid --ending in murder/suicide --represented the end of a tragic downward spiral of a young life. But having read the chronological saga of Nancy as told in Deborah Spungen's book, it becomes crazily apparent that the short few months in the Punk scene with Sid was the pinnacle of Nancy's miserable life, and complete with lurid aspects, without doubt the only period in which she was happy. Though Nancy's mother (who in subsequent years has gotten her Masters in Social Policy Work) seems to realize this with a singularly objective eye on one hand in her account, she raises some curious questions about her own perspective and priorities on the other. Readers looking for the skinny on Sid and Nancy will need to work their way through the painfully hair-raising episodes of Nancy's tormented babyhood, childhood and adolescence which take up 80 percent of the book. (These details may sound unbelievable to anyone who has not personally known of such a biochemically skewed child, but Nancy's story may offer interest -- though not much in the way of hope -- to parents of children with undiagnosed congenital personality disorders.) But the background, the difficult and lengthy recounting of the horrific sufferings of Nancy and her family, is essential in order to appreciate the relationship of Nancy and Sid -- one of the saddest, the bitterly sweetest, and arguably the only real love story to come out of the punk period. Some of the most revealing and poignant Sid lore available in print comes unexpectedly in Sid's own voice as quoted by Deborah. Remarkably, after being released on bond from jail after being charged with Nancy's murder, Sid called Mrs. Spungen with a heartfelt apology for not being able to attend her funeral. And what do you know, the book title "And I Don't Want to Live This Life" comes--not from Nancy's words, but Sid's--in a surprisingly well-written and juicy letter to Mrs. Spungen about his love for Nancy. Some interesting quirks exist in Mrs. Spungen's tome (one small but curious example: in the only two references made to Johnny Rotten Lydon, she calls him John "Lyman"). And other more intriguing questions could be raised about where Deborah Spungen is really coming from. In one aspect of consciousness, Deborah seems to realize that a)Sid and Nancy truly loved one another as best these two individuals could, b)Nancy's death was more suicide than murder in view of what few facts are known (for example, Nancy herself purchased the knife that killed her two days before her death), and c)Nancy was destined to die young as a victim of her own incorrigible biochemical nature. Yet, when all is said and done, Deborah chooses to pledge her resources in the aftermath to "Parents of Murdered Children." From all Deborah and her family had been through for the entire twenty years of hell Nancy was on earth, this focus seems to rather miss the point. It would seem to an observer that a more fruitful and applicable endeavor might be research into congenital aberrations of personality -- more specifically blood bilerubin abnormalities at birth -- which she early on identifies as the prime suspected cause of Nancy's life of frenzied misery. It's probably more of a woman's than a man's book - but a truly fascinating read on many levels.
Rating: 
Summary: Loser Mother Whines
Review: If you want to know how Nancy wound up being a drug addicted prostitute, look no further than her overbearing, nauseating mother. Don't enrich this wench by buying this book.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read!!!
Review: I read this book when I was a teenager but I have since purchased it twice and gave both copies away to read (never to be returned)
You cant help but cry fo Nancy's mother in this book, my heart goes out to you Deborah and your family for all you had to endure. God Bless from Brooklyn
SueBee
Rating:
Summary: Still pulling my hair out!
Review: I have read this book 3 times, and here I am buying the book again because I keep loaning it out and never getting it back! Even though it is one of the best books I have ever read, I still find myself getting overly aggrivated at Nancy's mother and her constant refusal that she did anything wrong...I wanted to reach in that book and strangle her half the time because when Doctor after Doctor told her that she needed to be more strict, and MAYBE her daughter was just throwing tantrums for attention, the mother would act shocked that it could be HER FAULT! I don't understand why people ask the questions if they don't want to hear the answers! How many people do you meet on a daily basis that let their kids run wild? Im sure the first thing that crosses your mind is, "that kid needs their butt worn out!" So why is it so hard for people who are reviewing this book to see that not everything should be answered with Ritalin or other drugs...sometimes good old fashioned, politicaly incorrect, disapline is best. This book is proof of that. As for those who question why the brother and sister turned out fine or "normal", that's fairly evident...Nancy was the first child, she was a dominant personality, she was spoiled by a mother who let her run the show, and the younger children feared her, they saw that Nancy did as she pleased and no one was going to stop her...they were submisive and followed as submisive younger siblings usually do. I have 2 boys, the older is bossy and competitive and dominates over his younger brother who will hand over his last toy just to make the older boy happy. It seems that no amount of punishment can make those character traits go away, but I can see him being another Nancy Spungen if we didn't have to disipline him over and over for the same tantrums and same dominating senarios. Just once I would have liked to have heard Mrs. Spungen tell Nancy that she wasn't getting her way no matter how loud she screamed. Of course our children would need psychiatrist and therapy if we let them have control over the entire family, all so that we could "keep the peace". Sorry, but Mrs. Spungen raised a monster....luckily for her, she had 2 submisive children to follow and not another dominant, she wouldn't have known what to do with two!
Rating: 
Summary: How much truth?
Review: This made a very interesting read. My main problem with it was the many inaccuracies relating to the Pistols, the music industry and England in 1977. If someone cannot be bothered to research correctly they shouldn't attempt to write a book. If she can't get simple things like John Lydons name correct then what other mistakes has her memory made? I have read a review from a friend of Nancy's implying that this book was written to resolve the Mother of any blame and was rather guilt ridden. I did not know Nancy but was around the punk scene at the time and I am afraid I would have to agree. A great story but a poor writer and a poor Mother.
Rating: 
Summary: An amusing account of a wistful mother's cold Reality Check!
Review: First of all Sid Vicious is grossly maligned in this book. Before Sid was accused of Nancy's murder,Mrs. Spungen actually seemed to feel slightly sympathetic toward him, but refused to admit it even to herself because she disapproved of his image.
Then, when the police accused Sid of killing Nancy, despite a complete lack of evidence to this effect, she conveniently didn't have to admit it! Mummy Spungen never seems to have questioned the idea that Sid Vicious, (a gruesome Punk Rock boy!) murdered her daughter even though this allegation was seriously flawed and almost entirely gleaned by the media! Considering what we now know about the personaliity of Sid Vicious, There is simply no way he could have killed her with malice of forethought!
I think this book is far more about Mrs. Spungen's pain than Nancy's. I don't think she ever understood Nancy, and was only whining because the Madison Avenue dream of The Perfect Family which she was raised on (like many women of her generation.) didn't come true!
When Nancy was born, with all her apparent emotional problems,
Mrs. Spungen realized the cold hard fact that her daughter was not going to be the virginal "Jewish American Princess" she dreamed of having. This was the hardest thing for Mrs. Spungen to accept!Nancy could never live up to her mother's standards, and Mrs. Spungen could never accept that.
I am so sorry that it is too late to explain to Mrs. Spungen that Madison Avenue Family Values are no more than elusive dreams that no one ever truly acquires. The American Dream is Just that, A dream! A fantasy!
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