The year is 1994 and Jen Trynin is the next big thing. Lawyers, agents, and records labels are all vying for her attention. Two albums and four years later she is another has-been, destined to be the answer to an obscure music trivia question.

Jen Trynin's new memoir Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be is indeed a rock-and-roll fairy tale. It's just that Trynin does not have the happily-ever-after that one would expect. In the real world--as opposed to "a land far far away"--Jen's happily-ever-after includes marriage to her prince charming and motherhood, not a career wrought with chart-topping multi-platinum albums.

Written with the 20-20 vision of hindsight, Everything I'm Cracked Up to Be is an insider's look at the music business with an outsider's perspective on "making it." The book follows Trynin's journey from obscurity and the "Sunday-through-Wednesday-night/folk-acoustic-chick-band-wasteland" to the dizzying heights of a bidding war and imminent stardom and back again.

Trynin's background in creative writing assures that the book is well-written, but its strength really lies in her honesty, both about the music industry and about her own shortcomings and mistakes.
This book should be required reading for anyone who wants to break into the music business

I'll be sending this out to CdnBlueRose tomorrow for inclusion in Marlene-TC's M-bag.

Received today for Marlene's mbag.

On it's way to The Netherlands in Marlene's mbag tomorrow!

Yes. Wow another hardback. I plan to read this before I am of to Birmingham to the meeting so I can give it to one of my UK relay mates. (although I am only allowed to carry 20 kilos in total on the plain and this book is heavy :-)

I will check if it is on one of the particpants wish list.

Will make another Journal entry to tell you my thoughts on the book. thanks rosie and morsie

RELEASE NOTES:

This book I promised to cats-eye. I plan to give it to giz-angel who is going to mail it to cat, when I am in Birmingham this weekend.

I received this today in the post - thank you so much dear Giz, for the postcard and lovely bookmark :-) And thank you, Crazy Dutch Lady for passing this one along to me...I'll read it as soon as Mt. TBR allows!

ETA 11/09: bumping to the top of Mt TBR as I've promised it to WoM as part of a wishlist relay.

As much as I enjoyed the 'local' references in this one (relating to the Boston music scene in the 1990's - I've spent many a fine night in some of the clubs she mentioned!), I just couldn't remember who Jen Trynin was, or really work up very much sympathy for her. I thought the story itself was very entertaining and well-written - I actually laughed out loud as a few of Trynin's experiences - but overall, I just felt she whined a bit too much after she (in a way) orchestrated her own brink-of-stardom downfall.
Overall a fun and fast-paced read, but I just found myself not really caring what happened in the end.

Thank you Morsie for sharing this one - I will be sending it on to WoM very soon :)

RELEASE NOTES:

Will be posting this to WoM shortly!
Happy reading, and my curly cats send purrs and headbutts to their curly coated cousins across the pond, WoM ;o)

Whoa. Did I know this was coming??? What a gorgeous book, in great shape, for all of its adventures!

OMG. I open the book up to a random page, where there's a BookCrossing postcard stuck in and my eyes fall out of my head. Hello? Cliff and Peter from Q-Prime??? This is SO not waiting its turn on Mt. TBR!!

Thanks, everyone! And the curly-coated kitties on this side of the drink send their love back to you!

On the one hand, I'm embarrassed this sat here so long, but it's not the only one and I've come to peace with that. I'm reading them now, though, and that's got to count for something.

But... I gave up on this after page 10. It was a simple recitation of facts: I did this. I did that. There was no context, no insight, no... nothing that made this interesting.