Books › Neon angel
Neon angel
384 pages
A gritty, backstage pass to the dizzying highs and devastating lows of teenage rock stardom.
What it feels like
Reading this memoir feels like being strapped into a roller coaster that is slowly rattling off its tracks. It captures the frenetic, glitter-dusted energy of the 1970s Los Angeles rock scene before plunging the reader into the grimy, claustrophobic reality of exploitation and addiction. The prose is conversational and unvarnished, stripping away the glamorous veneer of fame to reveal the terrifying vulnerability of being a teenage girl in a world run by predatory adults. Despite the heavy, often harrowing subject matter, the narrative maintains a propulsive momentum, driven by a fierce will to survive. It is a raw, unflinching experience that will captivate fans of gritty music history and stories of hard-won redemption, leaving you breathless and ultimately inspired by its sheer resilience.
- Mood
- chaotic
- grimy
- intense
- frenetic
- Tone
- raw
- candid
- unflinching
- reflective
- gritty
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- loss of innocence · dark side of fame · survival and recovery · exploitation of youth · rock and roll excess
- The writing
- Direct, conversational, and visceral, prioritizing raw honesty over literary flourish.
- The arc
- A dizzying rocket ride into teenage stardom that crashes into a harrowing abyss of addiction, before slowly climbing toward a hard-won, grounded redemption.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave unvarnished, behind-the-scenes rock memoirs and stories of women surviving the toxic underbelly of fame.
Content notes
- drug addiction
- sexual assault
- statutory rape
- physical violence
- alcohol abuse
About the book
Cherie Currie, with her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, was the groundbreaking lead singer of '70s teenage all-girl rock band the Runaways. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could play rock like no one else.Arriving on the Los Angeles music scene in 1975, they catapulted from playing small clubs to selling out major stadiums, headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. Currie lit up the stage with the provocative teen-rebellion songs "Cherry Bomb," "Queens of Noise," and "Born to Be Bad," riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, all while touring around the world.On the face of it, Currie's is a riveting story of girl empowerment and fame. But it is also an intensely personal account of her struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence. She and her bandmates, runaways all, were thrown into a decadent, high-pressure music scene where on the road, unsupervised for months at a time, they had to grow up fast and experience things that no teenage girls should. Neon Angel exposes the side of the music industry fans never get to see, and chronicles the group's rise to fame and their ultimate demise.Shocking and inspiring, funny and touching, Neon Angel stunningly re-creates a bygone era of rock and roll, all the while providing an inside look at growing up hard under the relentless glare of the public eye, and chronicling one tough woman's fight to reclaim her life.
Description from Open Library.
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