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Let me start off by saying that I don't really know much of anything about Patti Smith. Heck, I had to Google her to figure out what music she'd done and whether or not I was familiar with it (I only knew of one or two songs), so I didn't approach this book from a fangirl standpoint by any means. I know, this makes me very uncool and completely out of it, but, well, it is what it is.

I just couldn't get into this book. I know she's really famous and seems as if she made an impact on rock and roll, but, considering she's a poet, the book wasn't written very well. She writes as if she's recalling things from a distance, from an almost unemotional standpoint. Her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, at times, seems really strange, but we never truly know how she feels about it. I would have liked her to delve a little bit deeper, to let the reader know how his explorations with his sexuality affected her emotionally. Also, and I know this is my very modern thinking coming into play, Mapplethorpe hustles on the streets of New York but continues to have a sexual relationship with Smith. No mention is made of Smith worrying about STIs or her own safety. Sure, it was the 70s, but I can't help but feel it's a little bit irresponsible of Smith not to mention much about how dangerous it is to have sexual relations with a man who is prostituting himself.

There are several moments where there are incredibly touching, lucid, fascinating passages, but at other moments this reads like a who's who of the NYC art/music world in the 70s -- so much name dropping!

2 stars.