I won a copy of Melissa Auf der Maur’s Memoir, Even the Good Girls Will Cry: A ‘90s Rock Memoir, from a Goodreads Giveaway. For my first-ever Goodreads giveaway win, I want to thank Grand Central Publishing for listing this book. I felt I should review the book, but it’s been a while, and I feel a bit rusty. Be kind.

Melissa Auf der Maur’s memoir details her early life and her time playing bass for the bands Hole and The Smashing Pumpkins. She starts with some family history, her upbringing with her uncompromising feminist mother and her heavy smoking/drinking politically active father, and the early 90s music and art scene of Montreal.

When Melissa writes about her time in Montreal, it feels like a love letter to the city and the time. The memoir is well-written and has a distinctive voice. Melissa is open about her new age spirituality views, and that shows in her writing. The memoir gives a snapshot of the grunge scene behind the stage of the 90s. Billy Corgan seems to be important and recurring throughout the book. They meet just before The Smashing Pumpkins hit it big, and he is the reason she finds her way to Hole.

Melissa joined Hole, playing bass, a few months after Kurt Cobain and Kristen Pfaff’s deaths. Melissa seems to view herself as an outsider and observer of the grief plaguing the band at that time. When writing about Courtney Love, the front person of Hole, I found her kind, but I thought Melissa was very forgiving of Love’s behavior towards her. Yes, at the time, Love was dealing with a lot of grief and an addiction with a target on her back. There were scenes where Love was cruel, and I wanted to tell the author it was okay to be angry or upset with Love, but she seems to be very detached and maybe protective of her friendships.

There isn’t much about the time she joined The Smashing Pumpkins during their Machina/Machines of God album/tour, since they would soon break up.

Fans of Melissa, you may be disappointed as the memoir is mostly about her time in Hole. There is little to nothing about her solo album.

For fans of Hole, this is not a memoir to miss.