An Amazon Best Book of the Month, December 2014: Viv Albertine's memoir is a book is divided almost straight down the middle. Side One is the story of her upbringing in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill: It's the mid-seventies, and the Sex Pistols are at the head of a massive, angry (or at least frustrated) cultural insurgence. Her rebellious tendencies have led her into the center of punk culture, and inspired by its outsized personalities and confrontational style, she picks up a guitar, forsaking traditional training for the DIY ethos of the day. After her band with the pre-Pistols Sid Vicious (The Flowers of Romance--a possibly sardonic suggestion from Johnny Rotten) fails to launch, Albertine joins forces with The Slits, a ska-infused, all-girl outfit that, through the force of its collective will and audacity, elbows its way to the front of a stage filled with sharp, mostly male elbows. Everyone is wearing Vivenne Westwood's provocative clothing purchased from Malcolm McLaren's infamous boutique, SEX--at least as much as they could afford. Mick Jones of The Clash wanders in and out of the story, first as a gangly proto-punk spending all of his time and loose change trying to put together a band, and later as Albertine's on-again, off-again boyfriend (the classic London Calling track "Train in Vain" was inspired by her). It's a story in the best rock & roll tradition: Initiative leads. Ability chases. Success looms. Then someone bumps the turntable.

Side Two. The band has blown apart. Grownup problems ensue: education and career; marriage and kids; serious illness, divorce, and identity. The actor Vincent Gallo. Albertine moves through all of it, drawing from the same well of determination that compelled her to pick up the guitar for the first time. The two sides of the book may tell very different stories, but they share perspective and style that are both straightforward and ultimately uncompromising. If you love this music (and your library contains titles like Please Kill Me and Richard Hell's I Dreamed I Was a Very Clean Tramp), then this book is fascinating and essential. If not, it's fascinating and inspiring. It's occasionally coarse, and often terribly funny and fun.-- Jon Foro

“Ms. Albertine’s book is wiry and cogent and fearless.… Her book has an honest, lo-fi grace. If it were better written, it would be worse.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times

“A memoir full of raw and uncompromising anecdote and opinion, Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys is an unflinching account of a life lived on the frontiers of experience, by a true pioneer.”—Rough Trade, "2014 Books of the Year"

“Viv Albertine’s tell-all is a razor-edged self-portrait...Shot through with humor, pathos, and sheer strength of will, Albertine tells of finding early influences in Captain Beefheart and John Lennon, going to art school with on-and-off lover Mick Jones and a nascent Adam Ant, and forming the Flowers of Romance with Sid Vicious, all before pivotally teaming up with the Slits....The book is a testament to Albertine's unbending passion for music that’s uplifting and heartbreaking in equal measure.”—Pitchfork, “2014Gift Guide”

“If you love this music, then this book is fascinating and essential. If not, it's fascinating and inspiring. It's occasionally coarse, and often terribly funny and fun.”—Amazon.com review, December 2014 Amazon Best Book of the Month (featured debut)

“The best rock memoir by some distance of 2014 wasn’t written by a big name such as John Lydon or Bernard Sumner but by Viv Albertine.”—The Guardian, "The Best Music Books of 2014"

“A profoundly unsparing and affectionate memoir… I haven’t seen anything that captures the different sides of punks so well… there is an enormous tenderness to Albertine’s memoir…Clothes is as great as the music was and deserves a place on the shelf beside London Calling.”—Bookforum

“The Slits guitarist chronicles what it was like to live through punk’s first wave.”—“57 Books to Read This Fall,” Fall Preview Feature, New York Magazine

“Funny, sad, and evocative.”—Sunday Times, “Pop Music Book of the Year” (UK)

“[A] bold, empowering work."—Publishers Weekly

" [A] fascinating insider's look at the punk scene from a female perspective" —Booklist

"Viv from the get-go was fabulous, exciting, cool and inarguably integral to the history of punk. Her book, an eyewitness account of love, chaos and reflection, is a gender slashing, guitar smashing report from the radical front."—Thurston Moore

"I saw Viv Albertine of The Slits…How do I feel? Lucky….I realized I hadn't really witnessed fearlessness in a long time, at least not at a rock show. As one of my friends put it, more succinctly: ‘This was one of the punkest things I have ever seen.’" —Carrie Brownstein (Portlandia) reviewing Viv Albertine show in Brooklyn for NPR Music in 2009

“Oh @viv_albertine I salute you. Such honesty!”—Nigella Lawson on Twitter

“Viv Albertine was a member of all-female punk band The Slits. That's a fascinating stroy in itself, but her upbringing and, more importantly, her frank and visceral style make this a really gripping read. Shocking and enjoyable.”—The Bookseller (A Top 5 Monthly Bookseller Choice for June)

“While we see the world through Albertine’s eyes, it’s the rare, raw, glimpse into the birth of punk that makes this book so relevant…. Hearing the story from a woman’s point of view makes for very interesting reading… The pace is sharp and punchy, just like punk lyrics… Rarely can a book be so personal yet still resonate with a whole movement—and beyond.”—Stylist Magazine (UK)

“Albertine's music has never offered easy answers or comfortable conclusions. This brave, funny, honest autobiography doesn't either, and is all the more admirable for it”—The Mail on Sunday (UK)

“[Albertine's] book is both a bold chronicle of her personal ups and downs and a historical document that blows holes in the established punk narrative in which men are the major players and women merely window dressing.”—The Independent (UK)

“A fresh, insider's take on punk.”—Evening Standard (UK)

“A frank and fearless account of sex, drugs and life on the cultural frontline.”—Esquire Weekly

“'With a title that is an incantation and a picture of the gorgeous author on its cover, Viv Albertine's autobiography is quite something. It promises a punk snog'n'tell, but is a real tease: strident, uncertain, compelling, with a structure that jerks all over the place via snapshots of Albertine's life. This is maddening and magnificent all at the same time.”—Suzanne Moore, The Guardian (UK)

“Unflinching, candid, revelatory: the perils of being a pioneer.”—Jon Savage, award-winning author of England’s Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond

“I've always loved Viv Albertine and I love her even more now I've read this affecting, oddly beautiful memoir.”—India Knight, author of My Life on a Plate

“The Slits were perhaps the most subversive punk group of all....their adventures, musical and otherwise, are at the heart of this searingly honest memoir.”—The Observer (UK)

“A brutally honest book about the blood, guts, sweat and tears that went into becoming a woman in the Seventies. You don't need to be a fan of the Slits or even punk to be gripped from the off”—The Telegraph (UK)

“Love or hate the punk movement this memoir of those turbulent times by The Slits' guitarist is infused with humanity and vulnerability that gives it far broader appeal”—The Sunday Express (Holiday Reads Recommendations) (UK)

“Her voice is important in the back story of women in British rock, but she is now as original and interesting an entertainer in words as in music.”—The Times (UK)