Reviews tagging 'Terminal illness'

Just Kids by Patti Smith

42 reviews

themeanfrench's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug use, Death, and Terminal illness

Moderate: Suicide

beansforbrains's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective relaxing medium-paced

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion

Moderate: Drug use, Terminal illness, and Death

Minor: Suicide

chrissysbooks's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional inspiring reflective sad fast-paced

4.5

Really enjoyed Patti Smith's biography, I read it without knowing anything about her or Robert. So melancholic but has a deep sense of nostalgia towards a time I wasn't even alive. Beautifully poetic and raw.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use, Sexual content, Homophobia, and Terminal illness

Minor: Pregnancy

coffeecass's review against another edition

challenging emotional informative inspiring reflective relaxing sad medium-paced

5.0

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Drug use and Terminal illness

c410berry's review against another edition

reflective

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness, Death, and Drug use

tellmemore's review against another edition

reflective slow-paced

2.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content

Moderate: Terminal illness and Medical content

Minor: Kidnapping and Pregnancy

juliamakena's review against another edition

adventurous emotional informative reflective slow-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness

Moderate: Mental illness and Sexual content

thmei's review against another edition

adventurous challenging emotional hopeful inspiring reflective sad medium-paced

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Terminal illness and Death

Moderate: Drug use, Addiction, and Grief

Minor: Pregnancy

for the addiction & drug use tags: she & especially robert use drugs casually, mostly hallucinogens and later weed, and if i remember correctly they befriend some alcoholics but nothing particularly distressing or graphic is described, it’s just frequently mentioned. they have some bad trips but mostly lots of fun and creativity. for the pregnancy tag:

patti is briefly pregnant at 19 towards the beginning of the book and describes being treated badly during labor and the bittersweet sadness of giving up a child. she is also pregnant again as a married adult during the last chapter.

nothing is graphic at all. for the grief and death tags: robert’s death

from aids, as well as the death of his partner sam wagstaff,

is the primary focus of the last two chapters. you know from the prologue that he will die. these chapters are quite short and i personally didn’t find them overwhelming, but they are sad and the hopefulness at the beginning of this ordeal is very sad to the reader, who knows what will inevitably happen. it’s also quite easy to predict what will occur given the events of the book and any knowledge of the era, even with no knowledge of patti smith’s life. it is still extremely upsetting.

joensign's review against another edition

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Drug use, and Terminal illness

Minor: Pregnancy and Suicide

emtay's review against another edition

emotional inspiring reflective medium-paced

4.75

"Why can't I write something that would awake the dead?" (279)

This may not be Smith's endeavor in Just Kids, having accepted that the immortality of art does not extend to its creators. She instead embarks on a Homeric elegy to her dearest friend and lover Robert Mapplethorpe as well as the New York City of their formative artistic years. However, I experienced a personal rebirth. I am renewed in my artistic aspirations, inspired by Smith's succinct candor towards embracing her weaknesses, inspirations, and varied experiences as a young woman. I identified with her and found the hindsight with which she speaks aspirational. When she falls into "trouble" as a teenager:

"I had relieved the boy of responsibility... It is impossibke to exaggerate the sudden calm I felt. An overwhleming sense of mission eclipsed my fears" (18)

or when contracting a venereal disease from her dearest friend. She is loving and loyal. Creatively subversive while adhering to binaries of good and evil, life and death, God and sin. 
The only weakness is in the myriad of unexplained allusions to people in the scene, at some point, there are too many people whose eclectic influence on her life and not enough page. You have to accept the unknowing.
I am reminded of me and Jack. Of a love so deep I am not afraid of losing it. And when the love was young and ripe, I see me and Wes. 

"I was there for these moments, but was so young and preoccupied with my own thoughts that I hardly recognized them as moments" (159).

This is in part my plague. I love my own thoughts to the point of idolization, may this never stop me from living. May I walk alongside them, knowing they are there as a constant companion.

"It seemed being an actor was like being a soldier: you had to sacrifice yourself to the greater good. You had to believe in the cause. I just couldn't surrender myself enough to be an actor" (165).

This is why I have always maintained that the actor does not create the art, they are the conduit. The brush. The paint. They must be a little stupid. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Drug abuse, Terminal illness, Drug use, Death, and Medical content

Minor: Suicide