Courtney Love: The Queen of Noise

by Melissa Rossi

Book Overview

I am not a woman. I'm a force of nature. Courtney Love knows exactly what she is. She created herself: demon diva, goddess of grunge, media super-icon, wife of the late rock megastar Kurt Cobain. Lead... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0671000381
• ISBN13: 9780671000387
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: Pocket Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

This book is very entertaining to the last page!

This is a good book to read! I read this book in 2 days(that's how good it is!).It tells you about everything that you ever wanted to know about Courtney and what she went really through in her life.The good,the bad, and the ugly!I also read the other Courtney Love biography by Poppy Z.Brite years ago which was also a good read!

A fascinating Insightful Look At Love.

I bought this book at a large chain having seen it staring back at me on the shelf while passing by the biographies. ........... Let's be honest, Courtney Love is a fascinating person. Whether you personally admire, like, listen to or even barely tolerate her, a story about Courtney HAS to be interesting by default. I just finished reading another book about Courtney by Poppy Z. Brite. I liked that one, but I found this one much more interesting, and in depth where it counts. While Brites book was well written in general, she wasted alot of the book on unimportant details that caused me to skip over several sections. Rossi doesn't waste any time getting down to the nitty gritty facts, or fiction, for the reader. Who really knows the Hole truth but Courtney and those in the book anyway? All I know, is that I didn't skip sections in this book, therefore, it held my interest straight through. Some folks quibble over accuracy, but let's face THESE facts, good author, bad author, accurate to perfection or not, this is a highly entertaining read that I personally enjoyed very much. I do agree though, that a factual account of someones life, should be as accurate as possible, and the writer should make sure all research is indeed, correct. ............. Like many others, I find Love a fascinating person, and have read plenty about her in magazines too when available. If you are similarly Love inclined, you should not miss this book. Whether it is the BEST book on Courtney's life story, the jury is permanently out for me. In my opinion, any book with an interesting subject, plot or characters, fact, fiction or a bit of both, is on my must read list. I read the Brite book after this one, but I found this one more interesting on a Hole. Don't miss out because some folks get hung up on technicalities or personal likes/dislikes. If you are at all interested in Courtney Love, read it, you'll LOVE it too.

A Hole fan's take on this book

Melissa Rossi's painfully honest, warts-and-all portrayal of the infamous rock goddess Courtney Love is surprisingly well written and researched. Ms. Rossi even goes into the details of the year and the day Courtney Love entered this world. Her writing and sentence structure is beautiful, descriptive and lyrical. Take for example this line (no spoilers here): "... the high priestess of rock and roll ... simultaneously one with headspinner Linda Blair and Glinda the Good ... the Dark Angel followed by tragedy, the Drama Queen who lived life like a movie, the Black Widow unable to find a new boyfriend, the Wicket Witch of the Northwest who ranted about the Seattle drug scene while admitting to her own occasional heroin use, the media victim forever calling attention to herself."However, one thing that does mar this book is although Ms. Rossi claims that she likes Courtney Love "every other day", it seems she's written the bulk of the pages on those off days. The beginning chapter is nearly enough to turn the most inveterate Courtney lover against the singer with its graphic, uncompromising and at times almost vicious account/dissection of Love's antics on tour. The times when she referred to Love in her pre-surgery days as a "dumpling" and a "sack of flour" get annoying after a while, as well as her overly sympathetic portrayals of Courtney's various enemies, especially Mary Lou Lord. Love is no saint, but I doubt it any of them are paragons of virtue either.Beyond that chapter, "Queen of Noise" takes you on an ultimately compelling journey that is alternately horrifying and fascinating through Love's world: from an unhappy child living with her hippie mom in a Eugene, Oregon commune to the rock star she is today. It charts her path through juvenile delinquency, sleazy strip clubs, drug addiction, failed affairs, a promising movie career starting with "Sid and Nancy" that crashed into an all time low for her, her tempestuous and ill-fated romance with Kurt Cobain and the birth of her child in a whirlwind of controversy.However, at the end, Rossi sums it up with her assessment of Love that I wholeheartedly agree with: glowing admiration at this amazing and talented woman's stunning resilience, inner strength and determination. As Rossi says in a foreword: "Courtney is a one word contradiction."

A Must "Read" For All Courtney Fans

This book starts out at Lollapolooza and gives you brief but detailed descriptions that occured in her many "episodes" on stage. It tells of her poor childhood and her teenage years of rebellion. It takes you through her a life of struggle and obstacles. She never let anyone tell her she couldnt follow her dreams, and they did. It proves what a strong and talented woman she is and that nobody will ever get in her way-and when they do-clock em! It also tells of her first encounter with Kurt that lead to their marriage and his suicide. It shows what Kurt and Courtney really went through, that they wished to keep to themselves and not to the media. This was a great book and I could not put it down.

Exquisite!!!

I've read this book...maybe 4 times in the year I've had it. It's and easy read, only in the sense of no big huge un-understanable words. I've read every Courtney bio I could snatch up and read. All of which were great. No much repetivness. Always good to learn new things about an amazing woman.