ŷ������

“Take their picture,�� said the woman to her bemused husband, “I think they’re artists.��
“Oh, go on,�� he shrugged. “They’re just kids.��

�� �� i won’t be providing a rating because this is a memoir and i personally feel like it’s not right to rate on something that is someone’s life story.

Just Kids is, essentially, a raw, personal and tender love letter from the artist Patti Smith to her dear friend and past lover �� the late photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, whom she shared a profound bond with.

“We wanted, it seemed, what we already had, a lover and a friend to create with, side by side. To be loyal, yet be free.��

although it touched me in some ways and at some point it even made me cry, i must be honest and say that i didn’t deeply connect with this book as much as i thought i would. i liked the writing a lot and i definitely think the story is somewhat interesting and very touching, i just couldn’t feel profoundly connected with it. i guess i probably would have been able to connect with it in a deeper level and enjoy it more if i was familiar with Patti or Robert and had more knowledge of their work and the era they lived in [60s/70s]. there were so many references i personally didn’t understand and a bunch of mentions of people i’ve never heard of or knew very little about which made me lose interest in it every once in a while �� totally a me problem, obviously.

nonetheless, in general, i can’t say that i disliked reading this memoir; getting to know Patti & Robert’s lovely friendship and the many beautifully written passages Patti offered us made the read worth it in the end.

𓂃 �� 𓂃 ˖ ݁ . �� �� ✉️ favorite quotes. �� �� . ݁ ˖ 𓂃 �� 𓂃

“I had no proof that I had the stuff to be an artist, though I hungered to be one.��

“No one expected me. Everything awaited me.��

“I was a dreamy somnambulant child. I vexed my teachers with my precocious reading ability paired with an inability to apply it to anything they deemed practical. One by one they noted in my reports that I daydreamed far too much, was always somewhere else.��

“Committing to great art is its own reward.��

“He was a mischievous little boy whose carefree youth was delicately tinged with a fascination with beauty.��

“Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?��

“Robert was infinitely patient with my seemingly inexplicable melancholy.��

“I drew comfort from my books.��

“But secretly I knew I had been transformed, moved by the revelation that human beings create art, that to be an artist was to see what others could not.��

“Robert was ever in my consciousness; the blue star in the constellation of my personal cosmology.��