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soris 's review for:
Come As You Are: La Historia de Nirvana
by Michael Azerrad
Come As You Are is a fascinating time capsule. It claims to be the Story of Nirvana, and in a way it is that as well, but mostly it's a snapshot of Kurt Cobain at the height of Nirvana's fame, shortly before his well known suicide in 1994.
The book mainly focuses on Cobain, largely because it's based on extensive interviews Michael Azerrad conducted with Cobain. It covers his childhood and adolescence as well as Nirvana's origins and rise to fame.
The tone of the book is sometimes a bit strange, because it reads like one of those "what is famous rockstar X like in real life" interviews you see in teen magazines, possibly due to the tone and constantly calling the central three band members almost exclusively by their first names. But maybe it's a hard problem to avoid in a book that's largely based on interviews with a handful of people.
It's kind of telling that the chapter that worked the best in my ears was the final one, added as a late epilogue to the end of the book following Cobain's suicide, because there and only there Azerrad steps away from merely reporting what people are saying, and allows his own views, thoughts and feelings to shine through. In a way the book might have been a better read if it had been written entirely after the fact and in this style, but then it would be a completely different book.
As it stands, it allows a very personal and uncensored view into the life of Kurt Cobain just before the end. It isn't a polished PR piece, because Kurt often comes across quite unfavourably, but that's not a detriment in any way.
The book mainly focuses on Cobain, largely because it's based on extensive interviews Michael Azerrad conducted with Cobain. It covers his childhood and adolescence as well as Nirvana's origins and rise to fame.
The tone of the book is sometimes a bit strange, because it reads like one of those "what is famous rockstar X like in real life" interviews you see in teen magazines, possibly due to the tone and constantly calling the central three band members almost exclusively by their first names. But maybe it's a hard problem to avoid in a book that's largely based on interviews with a handful of people.
It's kind of telling that the chapter that worked the best in my ears was the final one, added as a late epilogue to the end of the book following Cobain's suicide, because there and only there Azerrad steps away from merely reporting what people are saying, and allows his own views, thoughts and feelings to shine through. In a way the book might have been a better read if it had been written entirely after the fact and in this style, but then it would be a completely different book.
As it stands, it allows a very personal and uncensored view into the life of Kurt Cobain just before the end. It isn't a polished PR piece, because Kurt often comes across quite unfavourably, but that's not a detriment in any way.