Just Kids Paperback – Deckle Edge, 2 November 2010

Completely and hopelessly in love with them. This book made me feel things i cant articulate. A sense of belonging, with people i would never belong with. Their art was indeed their child. And so is their story, turned so beautiful into magic as robert would say. 288 pages of just magic.The world shifting around pattie as the years go by feels brutal but honest. She does a phenomenal work of letting us peek through a window into a time that was fleeting yet so remarkable for every heart in the room. Her writting did justice to everyone whom art has taken.One of the best i've ever read.

Wow

Firstly, what a book! Loved it! If you are inclined toward art and music, its a must read. Patti smith transports the reader into her world, that inspires. Having said that, the language slightly difficult to understand since I have read a lot of novels and poetry.The quality of the paper is good. However the width of the paper is not uniform page to page. So the surface is serrated when the book is closed. Makes me wonder if its an original.

Just Kids by Patti Smith was the first book that I read in 2019 and it became one of my all-time favourite books/memoir instantaneously.Just Kids proffers Smith’s perception of photographer Robert Mapplethorpe AND the extraordinary relationship that they had when they were both struggling artists. This stunning memoir is Patti Smith’s heartfelt tribute to Mapplethorpe that is one of a kind and could not have been outdone by anyone else (IMO). What I loved the most about this memoir is how she delineated her story in a diffusive way whilst maintaining a marvellous lyrical tone all throughout the book. I admire how Smith admits to her naïveté and paints a beautiful and honest picture of the art and poetry scene in NYC and consequently the Chelsea Hotel back in 60s and 70s.I don’t think anybody could have written a better “biography” for Robert Mapplethorpe other than Patti Smith. MAYBE she was biased in her opinion of him or as I read somewhere that this book is a “sugar-coated memoir”. But if you ask me, it is an honest memoir by a person who truly and unconditionally loved her best friend through life and ever beyond.By no means is Just Kids a perfect memoir. But that’s what makes it all the more beautiful and perfect for me somehow.Normally, I don’t rate memoirs and autobiographies but this one is, hands down, a five star read for me and I HIGHLY recommend it to everyone.

Just Kids”, what an incredibly written memoir, so touching and meticulously articulated that Patti take us to the life of an young helpless teen girl, vulnerable to the vagaries of life and her serendipitous acquaintance with an young man at a very testing time of her life and later befriending him for a lifetime. Their living together and how she got groomed and evolved to became a fantastic artist with all the events unfolding candidly before our eyes and the readers themselves integrated into the life of Patti and flow along her like a fallen leaf floating with the turbulent currents.Her sorrow, ecstasy, vulnerability, uncertainty all are palpable as if she is living in our time, between us. Her extraordinarily beautiful and soulful relationship with Robert was at times heart wrenching and many a time exhilarating too but quite unforgettable and delightfully poetic.It also gives an insightful account of all those great souls, stalwarts in their own field of arts and at the same time so humane and unselfish to hold Patty in her testing times and rose her to the field of arts is nothing but the greatness of those generation of men and women.Just Kids is a delightful read.

It is not often that I read a book which compels me to sit with my thoughts for hours before compiling them into a review. ‘Just Kids’ was one of them. It’s hard to summarize and pin-point it to a genre, much like Patti Smith’s career herself. It’s a promise fulfilled to a friend who served as an axis of comfort and stability in an uncertain time. It’s an homage to New York in the 60s and 70s. It’s a reflection on the life of an artist before fame.What makes this book stand out is Patti’s prose. She is a gifted writer and someone who is unassuming. For a memoir, she was able to strike the right chord – introspective, candid, sharing her shortcomings without justifying too much, and being honest enough to show the life of a struggling artist without glamorizing it.

the single best book i have ever read.

Only replacement option is available and even after replacing once, the product has same issue of uneven pages with torn edges. The overall shape of the book is uneven too. Seems like a cheap copy.