Honestly, more of a 2.5 star book, but Goodreads and their draconian rules don't allow for half star ratings. This is the tale of a journalist's journey around the US to visit the death sites of famous musicians. However, from the get go it becomes clear that this book is more about his life and musinfs on life, love, and music.

Klosterman has a lot of musings. And since he comes across as very self satisfied a decent amount of his musings are garbage. His takes on Radiohead and terrorism, and KISS and his personal love life read as self congratulatory for being the only mediocre white guy to have these thoughts.

However, when he truly opens up and addresses his flaws, then the writing is stellar. There's a passage in there where he examines his past behavior with unrequited loves (or more correctly, infatuations) and I felt the inward cringing alongside him as I recognized some of my own past thought processes with past crushes. On a lighter note, he perfectly nails the appeal of the band Led Zeppelin, it felt like he was looking into my HS years.

The book and author think they're a lot deeper than they truly are. If he had dialed back on his smugness, it would have been a bit better. Also while I hate memoirs, this was thankfully short and breezy! So...its got that going for it

I wish I hadn't wasted my time on this book. I kept thinking I would just stop reading, but then he would say something clever every once in awhile that made me think he was going somewhere with it. But, he wasn't.

Love is a Mixed Tape is similar but I thought that one was a much better book.

Amazing. I Pushed this author off for such a long time only to regret it. If you haven't read Klosterman yet, take my recomendation... He's amazing

I found this book to be somewhat self involved and irrelevant. If someone paid me exorbitant amounts of money to travel around visiting the sites of rockstars' deaths, I could probably produce something at least as amusing as this.

Chuck Klosterman is one of those audiophile dorks, for whom every single minute aspect of life relates back to some obscure alternative song. Also...I hate Kiss and AC/DC, so reading a five page diatribe about how each of his past girlfriends relates to a specific Kiss solo album is NOT my idea of a good time, and is kind of a retarded analogy in the first place.

I will say, though, that I liked and was amused by analysis of Led Zeppelin and its importance as a band. Basically he says that every boy (what about the ladies, chuck?) experiences Led Zeppelin in the same way and goes through a period where they listen to nothing BUT Led Zeppelin and are wholeheartedly convinces that Led Zeppelin is the best, most meaningful, rockinest band in the world. I wholeheartedly agree with this. And what's funny is that my Led Zeppelin phase didn't occur until I was like 25 years old!

On the whole though, this was definitely a dude book, and not a great one at that.

I had a girlfriend once, whom I didn’t call my girlfriend, but whom I lived, slept with and spent most of a year with. This was probably the only book I saw her read, which she gobbled to ferociously. She isn’t really very much a music nerd, but her dad is a rock musician, so she was acquainted with the culture. I think she was taken with the free flow of words which resembled her own anxious dialogue spew. I once had to make a house rule restricting Tim Hortons talk to 1 hour.

I struggle to read very quickly, but when conversational and modern like this, like (surprise) a magazine article, then the prose easily torrents through my skull. I think many modern readers delight in this constant stream of input; we are bombarded by information so any slow down starts to feel like a traffic jam. My soul laments at this light and frivolous reading so much I forgot I had read it until I found it buried on some forgotten shelf. It reminded me of my experience Sedaris.

A pesar de las cuatro estrellas me esperaba más de la premisa de este libro. La cosa se queda en poco rock y mucho romance. Le salva que el tipo sabe escribir lo que hace muy llevadero el viaje (se lee de corrido) pero sus aventuras amorosas me sobran... todas. Sí, es como "Alta fidelidad" pero esta ya se sabía que era una novela sin embargo lo de Chuck se supone que era un ensayo sobre muertos del rock.

De todas maneras cualquier libro de esta editorial (Espop) se puede comprar a ciegas porque nunca defrauda.

Got halfway through. Couldn't handle groaning any more. This book has not aged well.

I LOVED THIS!!!!!

Interesting how Klosterman holds _the exact same_ opinions that some men I personally know do. For example, that the most overrated musician is Jim Morrison because he doesn’t sing, he is just drunkenly yelling

Klosterman has a voice like no other. I've never read a book that made me feel so intellectually stimulated. I instantly wanted to tell everyone I knew to read this book so that we could have intellectual conversations about life, death, love. The book is supposed to be about Chuck's journey to find out what makes a rock star a legend when they die early. Not much of the book is dedicated to this topic. It's more of the back-story of the book, not necessarily the thesis of it. There were times where I got lost in his music references and how they related to things in his life. (I don't know tons about the lives of the members of KISS or Lynyrd Skynyrd) However this didn't take too much away from my appreciation of the book. If anything it made me want to learn more about these bands and their members so that I can have an even deeper appreciation for the book.

I cannot express how highly I recommend this book.

My first foray into Klosterman’s writing was a total blast. I loved how he bounced between road trip diary and the influence of death on popular culture.

At times, the book felt like chaos and I was confused. But I was along for the ride!

I don't know what all the fuss is about...He's a good writer, entertaining, and even those people who absolute hated this work admit they couldn't put it down.

Ya, it's self-centered, nihilistic, and one-sided. Yes, he has horrendous taste in music. The writing is unconventional train-of-thought banter, sometimes rambling, and occasionally difficult to follow. Agreed.

For making his living as a music writer, he really does endorse some God-awful bands. But honestly, do you know anyone that can tell you about the entire history of KISS? I don't, and the fact that he can makes me realize that there are people out there that actually buy such crap... the world explained! Not every writer has to speak so honestly, and the fact that this is a memoir (or 85% of one, at least) should allow him to divulge and relate to his personal life.

You will not gain deep insights about death or love or rock n roll from this book. What it offers is simply a conversation, with Chuck and about him. It's like talking to one of your roadtrip buddies... honest, simple, and probably forgettable. But you still enjoy the ride.