Customer Reviews

Courtney Love: The Queen of Noise

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

The author claims to have respect for Courtney's achievements, but every page of this book drips with scorn. At one point she wastes an entire page reviewing Ms. Love's appearance in a derogatory manner, only to report on Ms. Love's plastic surgery later in the book with even more scorn. Lady, make up your mind.

At the beginning of the book she reports on her one-time co-author's scheming to make money off of Courtney's private thoughts, and then later describes said co-author's relationship with Courtney purely from his point of view, despite the fact that he is willing to say or do anything for the sake of publicity.

The good parts: Nothing, really. Read the book by Poppy Z. Brite, if you want good.

This book was practically painful to read. I was looking forward to it, being a big fan of Courtney Love's. Having heard about it on the internet through the Hole mailing list Hole Lotta Love and the newsgroup alt.fan.courtney-love, I enthusiastically plonked down my $7.99 at Toronto's World's Biggest Bookstore. What a mistake, when I realize now I could have bought some nail polish, new shoe laces and a frappucino for that much. Rossi's main source for info seems to be some obscure ex-boyfriend of Courtney's. Yeah, now *there's* a reliable and honest perspective. I'm not sure whether Rossi is a Love champion or not...she seems to admire her but examines all the awful things she's allegedly done. Love's life is a compelling story; I'm looking forward to the Poppy Z. Brite biography even more after reading this crap. Better writing would certainly have raised this above 7-11 cheesy rock bio. Unfortunately, that's where I feel Rossi's work should remain. She even gets simple facts such as significant dates wrong. I was thoroughly disappointed...I feel Love deserves so much better than this garbage. I'm not defending her as a person; I don't know if she's stolen or lied or what. I just really didn't enjoy this book. A friend of mine in Seattle that I lent this to (in order to save her money) says she couldn't even read it. .."I just looked at the pictures"

Melissa Rossi's painfully honest, warts-and-all portrayal of the infamous rock goddess Courtney Love is surprisingly well written and researched. Ms. Rossi even goes into the details of the year and the day Courtney Love entered this world.

Her writing and sentence structure is beautiful, descriptive and lyrical. Take for example this line (no spoilers here): "... the high priestess of rock and roll ... simultaneously one with headspinner Linda Blair and Glinda the Good ... the Dark Angel followed by tragedy, the Drama Queen who lived life like a movie, the Black Widow unable to find a new boyfriend, the Wicket Witch of the Northwest who ranted about the Seattle drug scene while admitting to her own occasional heroin use, the media victim forever calling attention to herself."

However, one thing that does mar this book is although Ms. Rossi claims that she likes Courtney Love "every other day", it seems she's written the bulk of the pages on those off days. The beginning chapter is nearly enough to turn the most inveterate Courtney lover against the singer with its graphic, uncompromising and at times almost vicious account/dissection of Love's antics on tour. The times when she referred to Love in her pre-surgery days as a "dumpling" and a "sack of flour" get annoying after a while, as well as her overly sympathetic portrayals of Courtney's various enemies, especially Mary Lou Lord. Love is no saint, but I doubt it any of them are paragons of virtue either.

Beyond that chapter, "Queen of Noise" takes you on an ultimately compelling journey that is alternately horrifying and fascinating through Love's world: from an unhappy child living with her hippie mom in a Eugene, Oregon commune to the rock star she is today. It charts her path through juvenile delinquency, sleazy strip clubs, drug addiction, failed affairs, a promising movie career starting with "Sid and Nancy" that crashed into an all time low for her, her tempestuous and ill-fated romance with Kurt Cobain and the birth of her child in a whirlwind of controversy.

However, at the end, Rossi sums it up with her assessment of Love that I wholeheartedly agree with: glowing admiration at this amazing and talented woman's stunning resilience, inner strength and determination. As Rossi says in a foreword: "Courtney is a one word contradiction."

11am one morning long ago I sat on a couch with this book and didn't stop until I was on the last page. As I closed the cover, I launched the paperback (says something when it comes out in paperback only) across the room. It was a definate mixture of too much CL energy and an anger that I wasted this much time on a Saturday.

Obviously this book has its attraction, (which was the idea you were learning about one of the most enigmatic women of the last decade) that kept me reading it. But this impulse has little to do with Melissa Rossi and her writing, and the ex boyfriend from hell imformant. Of all the people in the world to attain accurate information on anybody; spurned, jealous, and loser exes are probably not a very reliable sources.

The book oscillated from adoration of CL ; as if we were privy to a telephone conversation of the author trying to weedle her way back into being in contact with CL, an apologetic phone call to an angry friend, to angry recriminations from a friend ignored. There were moments which underneath the accusations of CL giving Kurt heroin and generally treating people in an disrespectful way that screamed "how dare you chuck me as a friend, and since you did, I will tell the world all your secrets, and if some of them weren't true, I will propogate it anyway, because hey, that is what I heard." Not pleasant to be part of such drama.

I have to admit the bits about CL's childhood and teenage years seemed quite objective, and sympathetic, from what I could gather was written when Rossi was still friends with CL. The rest of the book falls short.

I would suggest you borrow it from the library, because it is not worth the $ and you won't want to keep it. However, if you are a CL fan, I guess it is worth dipping into.

And last but not least Chiang Kai Shek Airport is definately not in Hong Kong. The airport in HK at the time was called Kai Tak.

This book was a horrible portraly of Courtney Love, esp compared to Poppy Z. Brite's book. I thought that it would be a good read, but its not worth it. It is a biased point of view with most of the information coming from an ex-boyfriend who obviously cant be trusted. save your money and if you want to read a good book about Courtney, get 'the real story' by Poppy Z. Brite or 'grrrls' by Amy cantrememberherlastname.

I read this biography first and then "Courtney Love: The Real Story" by Poppy Z. Brite, Courtney Love: The Real Story. Both definitely have their flaws and strong points. Each contributes different facts and stories, so if you read both you get a pretty complete picture of Courtney Love's life.

ROSSI:

This biography gives much more detail and depth into Courtney's life. The writing style is a bit haphazard and choppy, but is still understandable and more interesting than Brite's. The one main fault against Melissa Rossi is that she doesn't cite any of her sources which leads you to wonder where she got her information. She does admit that she never interviewed Courtney and this was "unauthorized."

BRITE:

A little easier to follow, but kind of feels like an overview. I wish she would have gone into more depth on some issues. Also Poppy Brite desperately needs an EDITOR! The mistakes don't really affect the story, but they certainly don't give the reader much faith in her abilities. Lots of color pictures and an extensive bibliography.

Neither book is really above the other and both books are entertaining reads for a cheap price.

No matter how you feel about Courtney Love, you have to admire her for clawing her way to superstardom after enduring nightmarish things like reform schools, family problems, dysfunctional relationships, etc. This book gave me a new perspective of her; until I read it, all I knew about her was from the biased opinions of COME AS YOU ARE and HEAVIER THAN HEAVEN. Anyone who reads this book will know, and hopefully understand, her much better. However crass she is wont to be, the woman is a tenacious survivor who doesn't let anyone put her down.

The book lost me toward the end. It just got too happy and convenient in the last chapters, which is why i didn't read them.

This is a good book to read! I read this book in 2 days(that's how good it is!).It tells you about everything that you ever wanted to know about Courtney and what she went really through in her life.The good,the bad, and the ugly!I also read the other Courtney Love biography by Poppy Z.Brite years ago which was also a good read!

I read Poppy Z. Brite's "The Real Story" before "Queen of Noise". Brite left out a lot of hard-core details. Rossi, however, did not. This is a real pageturner, I couldn't even put it down! Now, I really feel as if I know Courtney. (Even though I'm not her biggest fan)

This book is an entertaining, fast read, but judging from the factual errors that litter the pages, it's questionable as a reliable source of Courtney-lore, and should probably be seen as "historical fiction" at best. The book is not "anti-Courtney", per se, but it does give an astonishing amount of space to Rozz Rezabek, the whining former boyfriend whose claim to fame is saying that Courtney destroyed his career in the hatchetjob "documentary" "Kurt and Courtney". At some points it seems that it should be titled "Rozz Rezabek: King of Crybabies" instead. There aren't any interviews with people who are currently close to Courtney. Compared to Poppy Z. Brite's very detailed and beautifully writen bio, this one is very low-end.