rheading 's review for:

Love Is a Mix Tape: Life and Loss, One Song at a Time by Rob Sheffield

4.0

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When I turned one, my grandparents oddly gifted me a cassette of the soundtrack of my favorite Bollywood movie at the time and I think I appreciate the sentiment behind that present and the medium of tapes a lot more after reading this book. Even though I'm too young to understand the intricacies of pretty much every pre-2000s rock-and-roll reference Sheffield makes (except for songs like "Hey Jude" and "Sk8r Boi" and artists like Elton John and Shania Twain), I really appreciate how the story lives up to its title. Sheffield keeps you invested in the soundtrack of his life and how his wonderful wife Renée helped shape it. Here's a great takeaway from the book for me: Human benevolence is totally unfair. We don't live in a kind or generous world, yet we are kind and generous. We know the universe is out to burn us, and it gets us all the way it got Renée, but we don't burn each other, not always.