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“I now get scared of forgetting anything about Renée, even the tiniest detail, even the bands on this tape I can’t stand—if she touched them, I want to hear her fingerprints.”
In this stunning memoir, Rob Sheffield, a veteran rock and pop culture critic and staff writer for Rolling Stone magazine, tells the story of his musical coming of age, and how rock music, the first love of his life, led him to his second, a girl named Renee. Rob and Renee’s life together – they wed after graduate school, both became music journalists, and were married only five years when Renee died suddenly on Mother’s Day, 1997 – is shared through the window of the mixtapes they obsessively compiled. There are mixes to court each other, mixes for road trips, mixes for doing the dishes, mixes for sleeping – and, eventually, mixes to mourn Rob’s greatest loss. The tunes were among the great musical output of the early 1990s – Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Pavement, Yo La Tengo, REM, Weezer – as well as classics by The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Aretha Franklin and more. Mixing the skilful, tragic punch of Dave Eggers and the romantic honesty of Nick Hornby, LOVE IS A MIX TAPE is a story of lost love and the kick-you-in-the-gut energy of great pop music.
I want to start by saying I usually don’t read this type of books. I’m more of an actual fiction reader. I prefer the edgy adventures of reckless misfits, the ever-lasting happiness and love found at first sight. The surreal stories of a space princess and a scoundrel, stories of a love that was never meant to be, dark thrillers and mysteries that keep me at the edge of my seat. What I never, ever read are biographies. Or at least anything similar to a biography. The only biographies I have read in my life were the Diary of Anne Frank and My War by Adolf Hitler. How did I come across Love is a Mixtape then? Why would I, an inveterate fiction-only reader, end up reading a heartbreaking,, no, a heart-tearing story of a man who found love and loss and ended up caught in the middle of this beautiful disaster we call life?
If I’m being honest, I took interest in this book after I first saw this picture:
picture by Hélène Marie Pambrun via Instagram (@helenepambrun.photography)
At first, I thought it to be an edit, but then I discovered it was not an edit. That this picture was very much real, and that the Harry Styles was actually the one posing for the picture. And not only that, but he was also reading a book. Yes, Harry Styles. The man who buys thousands of books but never has the time to read them. Does that stop him from buying more? Absolutely not.
Then it was obvious what I had to do.
I had to read that damn book
If that was the book he had decided to read when he finally found the time to sit down and read, then it must be worth the effort. Not that any book is not worth the effort, because up to this day I am a firm believer that there are no bad books (just different tastes), but you know, like I said before, normally non-fiction books have a very hard time tickling my fancy.
And so it all began. I took my laptop and typed the name of the book on the search bar. Soon enough I came across the download link of the book and in less than five minutes it was sitting down on my iBooks library with the little blue new banner on the top right corner of the book cover.
I began reading it right away. At first, it was a little hard to read, it dawned on me that maybe it was because this man, Rob Sheffield, had a very distinct writing voice. He was unlike anything I had encountered before. But I found myself liking it. And then I found myself crying but in a cool way.
This whole book is completely something else. At one point I stopped thinking about how all of it wasn’t fiction and was mesmerised by the beautiful way this man did his craft. How he managed to write down years worth of memories, beautiful memories and make them just roll out of the page and into your heart. His story poured like honey into my eager eyes.
Something I absolutely adored of this book?
The music.
So many bands, so many artists, so many songs that shaped and moulded a complete century. Songs most of us know and love, the type of songs Millenials grew up hearing, the type of music the Z Generation (my people) see as distant and old. But no matter what type of songs they were, they were all great songs. Love is a Mixtape is a melting pot of pop culture references and subcultural knowledge.
It’s funny to read, heartwarming at times and completely devastating at others. By now, Renée is an indelible spot in my soul just as it is in Rob’s and anyone else’s who had the opportunity to read her story.
And honestly, for music junkies, this book is a catch. A true gem.
Another cool thing? I’ve got a lifetime worth of cool quotes with musical references on them.
“A song nobody likes is a sad thing. But a love song nobody likes is hardly a thing at all.”
In conclusion, Love is a Mixtape is one of the best books I’ve ever read. And I think that anybody who has read my other posts and actually pays attention to what I write can tell that this has been by far my best review ever. I can wholeheartedly say that this has been the review I’ve invested myself most in. Really, it’s almost 11:30 pm and I’m pathetically sprawled across the kitchen floor with a tall glass of Mott’s Apple Juice and a fine slice of carrot cake in my lap, typing furiously on my laptop’s keyboard, the low clicks the only sound on the otherwise silent house.
This book is for everybody. Renée’s and Rob’s story is a gift to anyone who reads it. And anyone who reads it should be everybody.
I truly hope all of you can enjoy it (and appreciate it) just as much as I, and I’m sure Harry, did.
The Book Stall 