I cannot say enough of how sad and yet happy it was reading and hearing her tell her story- there were times she added stuff on the audio that was not in the book. Note: I couldn't comment on the promoted artwork and photos as they weren't part of the advance copy. I feel like I never really got to know Debbie Harry at all, having just read an entire book about Debbie Harry, supposedly written by Debbie Harry.

I think Debbie has lived quite a colorful life and deserves her place in music history and as a pop culture icon. Secondly, the book was more like a list of random facts (which had no bearing or importance in regard to Blondie the band, or Debbie Harry as the face of Blondie) just sprinkled on the page and interspersed with, "and boy was I pretty.But some sections read as if Harry wrote them down (including the amusing 'thumb'-themed afterword). Without mentioning any spoilers I think that she certainly must have had several guardian angels working over time looking out for her at times. I bought the physical book from Powells and it was the signed version and that was quite the challenge to get and the Audio book on cd. Peppered with colourful characters, Face It features everyone from bands Blondie came up with on the 1970s music scene – The Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and David Bowie – to artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marina Abramović and H.

And if you're going to talk about all the times you've done heroin while heroin use and overdose deaths are on the rise, literally an epidemic, maybe follow up with something like "it was stupid, we were lucky to survive, and I wouldn't recommend doing it these days". I am not going to lie I think of her higher as a person that most people I know because her music has been in my life daily for the past 40 years. The music was catchy with a crossover appeal and I thought Debbie Harry was the perfect front person for the group. A character - a friend to many famous people, a drug user and part time pot seller (that did not get as much of attention as you'd think) and a abuse survivor. It is amazing how harrowing and interesting day to day life was for Harry as she spent her formative years in New Jersey and New York City – and she mentions several times that this was before they cleaned it all up.

I must admit that I was hoping to see if there was a photo of at least one of her birth parents as I've been curious about what her birth parents looked like, given that Debbie has such striking features, but there isn't a photo of her birth mother or anything, so it will remain a mystery. Regardless of whether DH is talking about her house burning down, being stalked and raped Blondie splitting up or throwaway waitress jobs, there's no change of pace or tone and only the merest superficiality of detail.

Of course, within a few years Blondie had become a veritable powerhouse of hit songs that topped the charts around the world. Shortly afterwards, they discovered they had accrued two years’ worth of unpaid taxes, prompting Harry to lose her house, her car and even some of her clothes. Humility, false modesty or refusal of a self that she did not want to find or rediscover, know or recognize, with perhaps the fear of reduced freedom as well as an impediment to entertainment, a complex mix of all that?

BRAVE, BEAUTIFUL AND BORN TO BE PUNK DEBBIE HARRY is a musician, actor, activist and the iconic face of New York City cool. I get the feeling that music was very much a sideshow to the wild ride of being a frontwoman for such a popular band. She is devoted to environmental issues such as clean water and saving pollinators as well as the promotion of the LGBTQ community and human rights. My favourite kind of memoirs are the kind that feel as though you’re just sitting down with a friend and having them tell you a story, this is that kind of memoir.

With all the grit, grime, and glory recounted in intimate detail, Face It re-creates the downtown scene of 1970s New York City, where Blondie played alongside the Ramones, Television, Talking Heads, Iggy Pop and David Bowie.As a musician, an actor, a muse, an icon, the breadth of Debbie Harry’s impact on our culture has been matched by her almost Sphinx-like reticence about her inner life. The groundbreaker, the trend setter, the rock diva, the disco glam girl , the rap star and the movie starlet. They were never as loud and fast as the Ramones or as influential as Patti Smith, but their music was irresistible. As to the format and organization, Debbie gets off to a good start, talking about her childhood, her road to success, and the atmosphere in New York during the seventies, which was bursting with creativity and artistry, but was also a dark, dangerous, terrifying city that was going broke.