Life by Keith Richards

I don't often read biographies but this one did appeal to me - primarily because my husband is probably on the biggest Stones fans ever! I of course knew who they were but never really listened to their music. By the time I was a teenager they had already done a lot of their 'bad boy' stuff and their image was already set in stone. Interestingly enough I just received a tweet last night reporting that Richard's oldest daughter with Patti was arrested on drug and graffiti charges. Hmm apple doesn't fall far or something like that.

This is a very honest and quite fun read especially if you are into music. Keith is obviously into music. I am sure he loves his lifestyle but he was quite content when they had enough to replace guitar strings and be able to eat as well. That is quite refreshing in this day and age I think. He is not the dog one is made to believe he is either. He tries very hard to keep relationships going when I would have bailed ages before, especially considering kids are involved. He stays with the mother of his oldest kids when she was on a major path to destruction and the fall out is the kids were exposed to a lot of damage. Keith did have a lot of good blokes around him who tried to help take care of them though. Like I said I would have been dust and taken the kids far away but he kept on trying.

Life is about his entire life so it is over 500 pages and that was probably cut down. What you see if what you get with Mr. Richards, I do believe that. He has no axe to grind, doesn't slag anyone off and truly loves his friends - even though he is quite clear when things have happened that annoyed him. The drug years are quite desperate and he doesn't glamorize them too much, in fact he talks very frankly about getting off them and that should be enough to scare anyone. As a parent one of the most disturbing things was the behavior around his kids when they were growing up and throughout the book there are letters and notes he had other people write of their experiences at different times. One of these notes is from his son who is also his oldest, Marlon. Marlon writes about how sporadic his schooling was but he asks to go back to England to go back to school and even reports his results. Very entertaining and I'm sure those kids have a lot of great stories too.

You can find more of my book and movie reviews at: http://ukchica.com/

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