When I Grow up: A Memoir (Hardcover)

by Juliana Hatfield (Author)
Key Phrases: merch guy, opening band, Blake Babies, Richard Thompson, Some Girls (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
From her humble beginnings as a Berklee College of Music piano student to her brief critical success in the 1990s alternative rock explosion to her latest side project, Some Girls, first-time author Hatfield chronicles more than three storied decades in professional music. Alternating between a present-day cross-country tour and recollections from earlier years, the result is a mixed, overstuffed bag. Hatfield, raised, trained and tested (first as pop trio Blake Babies) in Boston, charmingly recollects her experience as a serious female musician with no desire to appear sexualized before her audience; readers will cringe alongside her as she awkwardly rejects a hotel room photo-shoot suggestion: "Why did they always want me to jump up and down on the bed? Were photographers constantly nudging Kurt Cobain to jump up and down on beds?" Hatfield makes a compelling witness to the alternative rock boom ushered in by Nirvana's success, and is both lucid and thorough explaining the bureaucratic minutiae of the music industry's new world order, dominated by the massive influence of star-maker Clear Channel. As a writer, Hatfield is humble and personable, if at times tedious; a clunky, symbolic prologue-about being unable to buy a pre-show shot of Patron with her club-issued drink tickets-is an early indicator of the book's need for further edit. Still, fans of Hatfield's bratty, bedeviled pop stylings should enjoy these glimpses into her life.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Musician Hatfield, former member of the Blake Babies, recalls both her 15 minutes of fame in the early 1990s and her current, considerably less-glamorous life as a touring musician. Now in her early thirties, Hatfield is seriously considering hanging up her guitar after experiencing once again the discomforts of bad food, cramped dressing rooms, unreliable vans, and sparse crowds. The lure of music, making it and performing it, is what keeps her going, and she devotes many interesting chapters to the creative process, relaying both what has sparked the writing of her songs and how re-creating the sound in her head while onstage is somewhat like trying to catch lightning in a bottle. In her attempt to give readers an unfettered look at a working musician’s life, she sometimes suffers from TMI—her rants on the hardships of being a vegetarian and her petty feuds with coworkers do not exactly rivet one to the page or engender much sympathy. She does, however, adequately convey the pure joy she takes in her craft and the thrill of connecting to an audience. --Joanne Wilkinson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; illustrated edition edition (September 22, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0470189592
• ISBN-13: 978-0470189597
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (41 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #102,658 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An unglamorous and honest self-portrait., August 31, 2008

By	Michael Stack (North Chelmsford, MA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

A disclaimer: I've been madly in love with Juliana Hatfield's music since I was in high school, in the "find an excuse to leave work at 10 in the morning and buy her new album the day it comes out when the stores open" sort of way. This makes it highly unlikely that I'm capable of delivering a fully unbiased view of this book.

Having gotten that out of the way, "When I Grow Up" is a refreshing snapshot of a musician whose career, by all commercial measures, has been on the decline for well over a decade. Hatfield does not present the sort of tawdry, polished trash that most memoirs by rock artists put out-- there's no ghost writer, there's no glamor. But there is something entirely different-- a lot of grit, a lot of hope and a lot of fragility.

Splitting the chapters largely between non-linear biographical reflections and a detailed account of her US tour promoting Gold Stars 1992-2002, it's largely a story of a shy and somewhat neurotic young woman thrust into a dirty, grimy world of touring rock clubs-- unclean hotels, poor sound systems and creepy fans. And as a fan of Hatfield's music, it's entirely what I'd hope it would be-- well written, engaging and brutally honest. Hatfield does not hide from herself, from her failings, weaknesses and problems, but rather presents them, not as some romanticized presentation of the perils of the rock and roll life, but rather as the everyday troubles of someone trying to live their life and get past their own frailties.

I've been trying to think, as I set out to write this review, if this is something for someone who isn't into Hatfield's music, and I think the answer is a distinct maybe. What she presents is something we don't get a lot of: the point of view of the person who's fallen out of favor. Juliana Hatfield is someone who has survived as a musician but she hasn't exactly thrived.

This book is being released to coincide with Hatfield's latest record, the polished How to Walk Away, a superb effort in its own right, but I'd suggest that a better soundtrack could be found with 1997's Please Do Not Disturb, written shortly after the non-release of "God's Foot", that record very much captures the feel of this text.

Bottom line-- this is a well written and interesting portrait of life as a musician. She doesn't pull any punches and it was everything that her music, painfully honest in a way I'd expect from Hatfield (this is someone who posited, "it's a miracle I'm even here, you're over me" on perhaps her rawest record, 2006's Made in China). Memoirs rarely live up to expectations, they seem too careful. This one is very much what I would have hoped for it.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Juliana Hatfield's So-Called Life., August 27, 2008

By	A. Marbach "badgroove" (Sometimes Sunny California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

(What's this?)

Hatfield's "When I Grow Up" is a great read. It's an intriguing look into the life that so many young people think that they want...a life that is suppose to be glamorous and fun....the life of a musician.

The book starts off with an alternating pattern. Starting with Chapter 1, it begins a chronolongical journey that starts with the first tour of Juliana and Some Girls. Then Chapter two starts the second path- a far less chronological - but still riveting stories from before the tour- stories from childhood- stories of songs and people. These two "paths" intertwine into the story that is Hatfield's life.

Stories from the road are eye-opening to say the least. I think many fans will find her stories of touring to be not so glamorous...from crummy hotels to dressing rooms with no bathrooms to touring in a minivan while sick to inspiration found in notes from fans. Hatfield leaves nothing out. Is it any wonder that she decided to take some time off to find herself?

I found this to be a fast, well written memoir. The prose flows well into the alternating chronology of the book. I recommend this book- not just to Hatfield fans, but to anyone who likes to read the genre or who wants a realistic look of what the life of a musician is really like. Its not the lifestyle one would expect.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Unbalanced But Powerful Look at The Less Fun Parts of Being a Rock Star, September 18, 2008

By	Rachel Kramer Bussel "Cupcakes Take the Cake ... (New York City) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

Like many other reviewers, I'm a Juliana Hatfield fan, and was eager to read her book, as well as curious that she had written a memoir. But it seems that she has written two memoirs in one, and one is fascinating, while the other is rather tedious. Hatfield chose to split her memoir into alternating parts, one documenting a tour with her band Some Girls, one from her childhood through her first band The Blake Babies and later success on the alt/indie rock circuit with hits like "My Sister."

What redeems this book is Hatfield's spot-on look at some of her more troubling moments and thoughts. The anxiety and depression she faces are laid out starkly, plainly, in ways that could never be accused of glamorizing her profession. She gives the inside scoop on shooting the cover of popular teen magazine Sassy, both how honored she was to be featured, but the downside of fame, being made up and ultimate posing with her guitar, rather than playing it.

When she describes her anorexia, it's familiar to anyone who's suffered from an eating disorder, and Hatfield deserves kudos for her unfiltered delivery. It's clear by the end that she is not trying to impress anyone, but simply using the form of memoir as another way to communicate. It's also clear that music not only saved her, but is something she continues to feel driven to do, which makes her ambivalence about the industry, despite the many pitfalls and problems she describes, frustrating.

The book is marred, however, by way too many details about the life of a traveling musician, ones that lose impact upon repetition. Hatfield seems to find no hotel room too dirty, no rock club too scuzzy, not impending tantrum worth skipping over in favor of the narrative. Sometimes these annoyances are interesting, such as the overzealous bordering on creepy fans she has to yell at to get out of her dressing room.

Ultimately, this book reads like it was cathartic for Hatfield to write, but could have had a stronger vision of what makes for entertaining reading. It jumps around and gives too much monotonous information while it could have focused more on her emotions, songwriting process, and other aspects of her life. Still, it's worth a read for Hatfield fans or general music fans who want insight into what the real, unglamorous life of a rock star is.