Wow. I don't usually gravitate to music autobiographies, but this one caught my eye with a fun title, bright cover, and an author whose music was the soundtrack to a very specific time in my life. Jake Shears knows how to tell a story, and he skillfully weaves together both the fantastic and the mundane events and experiences that lead up to the Scissor Sisters. The book can sometimes feel like a series of events rather than one narrative, but as a whole the book works. As a reader, I laughed, cried, and felt a connection with a man whose life is both amazing and the story of love, heartache, failure, and success that we all have to some degree (although, my successes have, sadly, never included Elton John). And as a fan, after over a decade of not thinking about his music, I had a great time listening, dancing, and reminiscing.

This is from an advance review copy for which I thank the publisher.

Jake Shears, aka Jason Sellards, is a founding member of Scissor Sisters and while I'm not a huge fan of the band, I do like some of their music, in particular, I Can't Decide (the third track on their second album, Ta-Dah), which I think is brilliant, and deliciously bitchy. I'm rather interested in how people go from an everyday life to a stage performer in a band, so I was initially interested to read this, but I found it to be a real disappointment. I read it to fifty percent, and then skimmed to about 70% and gave up on it after that.

The band part of this memoir doesn't appear until the halfway mark and it's very thin. That part of the story doesn't truly get underway until about 70% and even then it's not as interesting as I'd hoped. The first half is taken up with the author's childhood and his college days. This part was slightly depressing. He went through a lot and had a lot to put up with, but that said, there really was nothing here that scores of other men and women haven't had to face, particularly if they're in the LGBTQIA community, so this didn't bring anything new to the table.

What bothered me about this, apart from the author never really seeming to want for money!) was that he appeared to have learned nothing from these events, or if he did, he sure wasn't interested in sharing his insights and thoughts on the topic. This was one problem with the book - it read less like a diary even, than it did a daily planner, with a litany of events and people trotted out, yet none of it had any depth, resonance, introspection or observation.

I never felt like I really got to know the author. We were kept largely at arm's length (as indeed was his "best friend" Mary, it would seem), and learned of him only through what he obsessed on or what seemed important as measured by how much space and repetition he gave to it. Judged by that latter criterion, casual sex and partying are his greatest loves. This second-hand perspective delivered an impression of shallowness and inconstancy, as though we were reading about the natural history of a gadfly rather than a person's life. As the New York City portion of the story ever unfurled, things only deteriorated. It felt like the story became even more shallow.

He was there to pursue a degree, but even when he got it, he did nothing with it. Admittedly the job market wasn't great, but what was the point fo the college education? From what we're told here, he was far more interested in dressing up, dancing, partying, and picking up guys than ever he was in a career.

His musical forays happened pretty much by accident and in a very desultory way to begin with, like he couldn't be bothered unless it fell into his lap, as it actually did in effect - at least that's the impression he left. I know the author has no control over the blurb their book gets, but this blurb mentions "...a confusing and confining time in high school as his classmates bullied him and teachers showed little sympathy." That kind of thing is entirely inappropriate and all-too-common, but what the blurb doesn't mention is what the author tells us, about how he liked to dress out even though he hadn't yet come out. This must have attracted entirely the wrong kind of attention.

And if you think a person ought to be able to dress how they wish, then I completely agree with you, but we don't live in a perfect world. In the world we do inhabit, one populated with ignorant jackasses and moronic dicks, this freedom brings a price and that price is exactly what the author suffered: bullying and little sympathy. A bit more attention to the wisdom of certain modes of dress and certain behaviors might have saved him a lot of this hassle. But the real problem here is that he doesn't talk about this in any detail, or offer any thoughts or insights here any more than he does on any other such topic. Maybe how he behaved and dressed would have made no difference, but we'll never know because it's one more important discussion we don't get from the author; one more cogent observation we're denied.

The casual sex was rife and disturbing. At first we're told it was oral only, which isn't exactly safe sex, but then we're not told anything about it other than it happens - frequently, and with a variety of one night stands and some dating in between. There is nary a mention of safe sex even though AIDS is mentioned. Even here though, the topic is dealt with so cursorily that it was like the ongoing AIDs problem never really happened or if it did, it impinged very little on his life or on the life of anyone he knew. I didn't expect the author to keep harping on it (or on any other topics for that matter), but I did expect to feel something of the impact of it and how it was dealt with, and how he felt about it all, but again we;re denied that.

There's really no mention of disease concerns or risks from casual sex, and there ought to have been, even if the author never had any such problems himself. As it is, it looks like not only the author, but no one he knew ever had any issues. Maybe that was the case, but it's hard to believe. As it is, the author plays right into homophobic stereotypes of the gay community and that's never a good course to follow, especially from the pen of someone who liked to plow his own furrow, so to speak.

One issue with memoirs for me is: how can someone recall events and conversations with such clarity from years before? I know some people can, and I know some people conflate several events into one for the sake of brevity and moving the story along, and this is fine, but nowhere are we told whether these particular recollections are amalgamations, or if they happened word for word (or close enough), or if they're simply impressions with some dramatic license taken. It would have been nice had a word been said about that. There are some events which feel like they would leave an indelible impression such that recall, even if a bit vague, would be authentic, but most of what we're told here wasn't of that nature, so I have to wonder how reliable some of this is, and I guess I found out. More on this later.

Starting with New York, the name-dropping became so rife in this book that the din from it was a distraction from the actual story, and it seems to serve little purpose except for the author to say, "Hey, look at all these people I know!" It felt so pretentious, and there were so many repeated mentions of going to parties and spending the night with guys he just met that the whole thing quickly began to feel sickeningly self-indulgent, shallow, thoughtless, tedious, and even dangerous.

This shallowness really came to the fore when the events of 9/11 were related. He was in New York City when the planes hit the towers, but none of that seemed to make any impact on him, because all we got was a brief paragraph sandwiched in between a night he spent with three other guys and a complaint that because of the fall of the towers, it was hard to party in the city and parties had to move out to the suburbs! The author didn't specifically say that himself; someone else did, but his lack of any sort of commentary on that attitude appalled me.

The shallowness he displayed over this entire thing was sickening. He was living within a few blocks of the event and saw part of it happen from the roof of his apartment block, and this one short paragraph and a couple of mentions later was it. I didn't expect him to agonize over it and put ashes in his hair and rend his clothes or anything like that, but his mention of it was so fleeting and cursory that it seemed like it was just another party in a long line of parties he attended - or perhaps more accurately another hangover after one such party. It's almost like he said, "Oh well, that's that, let's get dressed for the next fancy dress party!" This really turned me off the author. Another such incident was the New York blackout. That turned out to be just another opportunity to party, pick up a guy he didn't even really like for a one-night-stand, and that was it. Even then we got more about that than we did about 9/11!

I was ready to quit reading this memoir at the halfway point, but I still had read nothing about the band as such, so I pressed on. It was right around this point that it looked like the forming of the band was about to get going, but even then the story about it was awfully thin and sketchy, lacking any depth or insights, and it was still riven with never-ending tales of casual sex and partying. The monotony of it all made me uncomfortably numb, and I started skipping everything that didn't touch directly on the band from then onward. It was this that I was interested in, and I honestly felt cheated out of it by this point.

In the end I simply gave up on it. I honestly did not care about this shallow life I was seeing stretch-out meaninglessly across screen after screen. I cared about the music and the band and the dynamic and the energy, and we got so little of that, and almost nothing about the other band members. In the end it was a Scissor Sister, in the singular, and it was disappointing because it seemed to suggest that the very thing he had been heading towards since page one meant so little to the author that he could barely bring himself to write about it.

It was around this time that I read, "I hadn't had a boyfriend since Dominick" and this was just a screen or two after he'd told us he was dating a guy named Mark. Was Mark a girlfriend then, or is dating someone not the same as having a boyfriend?! What this confirmed for me was how unreliable this book was: something I touched on earlier in this review. One of the many names dropped in the book was Amanda Lepore, and I read her memoir some time ago and found it to be just as shallow as this one was. I'm now really soured on celebrity memoirs! Maybe if Ana Matronic wrote one I might be tempted to read it, but other than that, I'm done with this kind of thing. I wish the Scissor Sisters all the best in their career, but I cannot in good faith recommend a book like this.

I dont read that many memoirs so this was a switch for me. It was interesting, based on the life of Jason/Jake Shears who is in the group Scissor Sisters. The first half was about his early life growing up in Arizona/Seattle and his move to New York, his coming out and everything he experienced in the 1990's when gay people were not as accepted as they are now. I thought that part was pretty interesting, He is honest about his use of drugs and his sexual conquests, his relationships and how he helped in the formation Scissor Sisters. I found his story compelling. He mentions many famous people who he met almost incessantly which is obviously true but maybe a little too much for the second half of the book. Very emotional story that kind of ended quickly. Liked it but felt it was somewhat monotonous in the second half. All in all a decent memoir of a rock star's rise to fame.

End at first few pages. Not my style of reading and refused to continue.

In his memoir, Jake takes us from his childhood in Arizona and the Pacific Northwest, and in neither place did he fit in. He was too flamboyant, too out there, just too over the top. But he didn't know how to be anything other than what he was. Gay, in a time and place that could get you ostracized but hurt.

The relationship with his mother was one of total acceptance. His father more stoic silence. 

Trying to find his own identity and voice, he realizes he wants to sing. On stage. Be the center of attention, which he loves. When he moves to New York, his meeting with Babydaddy is pivotal and begins the formation of the band Scissor Sisters.

The beginning was pretty good. The description of the gay community as well as the Seattle music scene was very interesting. Then we got to the middle and I was really trying hard to step over the names being dropped.

I would have liked to know more about his depression and how the band wasn't that huge in the U.S. and why.  Were there parts that were a little slow? Yes. Was the gratuitous name dropping necessary? Not that I could tell. I would read the first half again. 

Netgalley/Atria  February 20, 2018

I’ve never been much into autobiographies but I enjoyed this.

I remember listening to Scissor Sisters in the early 2000s; I always thought their videos were so incredibly bizarre.

Jake Shears, lead singer and author of this book, was one of the rare artists at that time who was unabashedly fabulous and flamboyant, with absolutely no compunctions about what he looked like on screen. I thought that was incredibly cool.

I have only ever heard 3 songs by the band but haven’t really thought of them as anything more than a one-hit-wonder. After reading this book, that notion will have to change.

Turns out Shears studied creative writing and has been writing fiction since he was a child. This book is testament to his love of words. I love his writing style. It’s personal but also amusingn clear but concise. His writing isn’t too whimsical; it’s like a friend chatting to you over afternoon tea. I love it!

I enjoyed the first part of the book where Shears writes about his youth and life in Arizona. He made the settings come alive and I could practically see the people he was describing. His difficulties fitting in, and his subsequent loneliness, are universal themes recognised by any queer young people out there.

When Shears writes about Scissor Sisters finally taking off and going on a frantic worldwide tour, you can feel the exhaustion and the perspiration slide off the page. It’s fantastically well-written and was so gripping that I couldn’t leave the book for those chapters.

Shears has poured his heart and soul into this book, even if it means painting a not so pretty picture of himself or life as a pop star. He is able to distance himself enough to give the facts of a situation, which is hard when you’re writing about yourself. I liked his honesty but sometimes felt he wasn’t being harsh enough on himself.

He speaks of writing and creating songs without all his band members but forgives himself quickly when those bandmates became upset about being excluded. He mentions some innate racism that makes him uncomfortable when he moves to New York but doesn’t engage with this facet of his personality apart from a couple of throwaway sentences. He glosses over his temper tantrums and his habit of making scenes in front of people.

It feels a bit like Shears himself hasn’t accepted that he isn’t perfect at all times. It isn’t easy to lay oneself bare in words, but I can’t help but wonder how the people at the receiving end will react to him going on easy on himself.

I also found the middle sections a bit slow and dull. They were too preoccupied with Shears’ many romantic entanglements which seemed to have been included more for salaciousness than any other reason. I would have preferred if more chapters were spent on how the band worked together and what exactly went into creating a studio album.

As much as I loved Shears’ writing, I did often find myself wanting more. There were elements introduced but preemptively dropped. There are passing mentions of presumably significant events that aren’t elaborated upon.

The ending of the book seemed a bit abrupt to me, as well. Whether or not Shears will write more memoirs, I don’t know but, one would hardly expect a sequel when reading an autobiography. Why not include everything here?

I did enjoy this book, despite a few flaws. Shears has been very open about the music industry, suburban life and the struggles and joys of being LGBTQ+ in America. His writing is attractive and engaging and he holds little back. I would have liked this to be complete story of his life, which it was styled to be, and for more thought to have been put into what did and didn’t get fleshed out.

All in all, a thoroughly enjoyable read. If you need me, I’ll be listening to the Scissor Sisters.

What a wild romp through the life of a punk rocker, who also happens to be gay, in the 1980s and thru today, and who truly gives no F's about what other people think. Descriptions of friendships with well-known names mingle with tales about well-meant (maybe) attempts to elevate those unknown, and lots * lots of ribald commentary on the times. I loved it!

In living in New Orleans, I was fascinated to read this book based solely on the fact that this city and all its characters, have really great stories to tell. This book by Jake Shears exemplifies that statement to a tee.

This book is a coming of age story in which the author struggles through his unconventional childhood to find his place in the world. His journey eventually leads him to New York City and meeting a whole new cast of characters who may come and go, but shape him into knowing he was born to be on a stage and perform. He finds his niche and a star is born. His world opens up in all the ways he dreamed it would, but fame and fortune always has its downside and no one is immune from the perils. He loses important people in his life and struggles to adjust to normal life after coming down from the high that is performance. He finds himself off-balance and depressed, and we see his road to normalcy again. This story shows that no matter who your are, and no matter what your life's journey looks like, we all share in the same struggle of finding our way through life.

Amazing, intimate glimpse into what it takes to be inside the life of a performing artist. Touring, writing lyrics, making music. Sex and drugs. The energy that is expended. This guy paid his dues. In his honest, expressive prose he shows how much courage and sacrifice it takes to be a successful performer. I was compelled to go watch and listen to everything Scissor Sisters on YouTube.

Honestly I had never heard of Jake Shears or Scissor Sisters before reading this book. Thanks to this well written and fascinating autobiography I added both the band and the author to my favorites list. This book is well worth your time,

The memoirs of the Scissor Sisters front man, Jake Shears is at times, a tough read. His has not been the easiest life, and by his own admission, he can be a tricky character, driven, ambitious, swinging between egotism and a total lack of self confidence. I admire his honesty in writing about his flaws as much as his successes. It makes for a gritty, absorbing read instead of a piece of show business fluff that is basically just an advert for a band's back catalogue. There's none of that here. You feel that Shears needed to chase his dream, and the anguish is that when he got it, he really didn't know what to do with it. I only wish the last few years weren't kaleidoscoped down into what is effectively a kind of epilogue, and there had been a bit more balance in the time span.

Brash, bold, sparkly, and decadent. This memoir was exactly what I expected. Best enjoyed poolside with a cocktail.

4.5, rounded up. This is a surprising book in many ways, not the least of which it isn't just the usual lame rock star autobiography - and Shears can really write. Given that he studied creative writing in college (he 'graduated', but never got his degree because he failed to turn in his final novella!), perhaps that shouldn't be such a surprise. And the majority of the book actually chronicles his years as a young, confused, bullied queer kid - the creation of his infamous band, Scissor Sisters, doesn't even happen until well over the halfway mark. Although many of these familiar tropes have been trotted out elsewhere - let's face it, most queer kids go through similar traumas - he still writes them in a refreshing and interesting fashion, and it gives insight into what transpires when he DOES become famous.

The latter part of the book does ALSO contain some typical elements about the rocky road to fame - drugs, sex and rock 'n roll figure prominently - and how success isn't always all it's cracked up to be; but anyone who - as I do - considers themselves to be a fan of SS will be entertained and enthralled by the gossipy tales. I devoured the 336 page book within a 24 hour period, so that alone is a testament to its power.

Sadly, the book ends rather abruptly around 2005, and I was HOPING for a detailed account of Shear's collaboration on the failed musical version of "Tales of the City' (which I saw in its premiere production in - where else? - San Francisco). But Shears hints that there MIGHT be a volume two chronicling the last ten dozen years - and I for one would be first in line to read it!

My sincere thanks to Atria Books and Ariele F. for their kind provision of an ARC in exchange for this honest review.

I'm between 3.5 and 4 stars, so I'll round up.

"Writing about your life is panning your imagination for shiny bits. Much memory is grimy and covered with fuzz, like a component of some unknown thing that was left under your couch for years, attracting dust bunnies. When you find it, you're unsure what it was used for in the first place. You do your best to wash the pieces off and line them up on a table, in hopes that with a little concentration they might be understood for what they were. And maybe you find that a couple of the pieces fit together."

I decided to read Boys Keep Swinging, a new memoir by Jake Shears, the lead singer of the musical group Scissor Sisters, both because I was a big fan of the group's music and because, well, I'm fairly enamored of Shears, who has a penchant for posing for and taking pictures of himself in various states of undress. (Whatever. We all have our Kryptonite.)

Beyond his music and his physical appeal, I honestly knew nothing about Shears. In fact, I'm embarrassed to admit that because of the intonation he uses in some of Scissor Sisters' songs (say that five times fast), I thought he was Australian. But as much as this book is about the rise of Scissor Sisters and how Jake dealt with finally achieving his dreams, Boys Keep Swinging is so much more than that—it's a poignant and entertaining look at one man's quest for happiness, a sense of belonging, and peace with himself.

Shears, born Jason Sellards, was raised in Arizona. From a young age he knew he wasn't like everyone else—he didn't like sports, he preferred the company of adults (particularly adult women) to his peers, and he had a talent for writing and telling stories. And as he grew into his awkward teenage years, and realized he was gay, he wasn't ready to acknowledge this fact to his parents or those who knew him, but that didn't stop him from dressing and acting flamboyantly. He just didn't care what people thought, although he feared how his parents might react.

The book follows his journey into adulthood and self-acceptance, and his desire to find his place. He tells of friendships made and those lost, sometimes because of his own actions, and his desire to find someone to love. He endures interesting work and living situations, but slowly begins to realize he feels most alive when in front of a crowd, whether dancing on top of a bar in his underwear, performing in drag, or finally, writing and performing music he wrote.

As Shears describes how Scissor Sisters came to be, and the struggles the band faced on its way to success, he also touches on the numerous people—famous and behind the scenes—who inspired and helped him. He also isn't afraid to shy away from discussing how even at the pinnacle of professional and personal success he had trouble being happy, instead worrying whether everything would fall apart and he'd be left with nothing.

Unlike some memoirs, Shears doesn't paint himself as perfect in any way—he's more than willing to enumerate his flaws and how he mistreated some of those people closest to him. He's not afraid to discuss his regrets or his insecurities, even those he still deals with. That made reading this book a much more moving and fulfilling experience.

I enjoyed this book for a number of reasons, but particularly because I identified with Shears' struggles growing up, dealing with the bullying of his peers and seeking the acceptance of his parents and others. How many young people trying to come to terms with their sexuality and wondering if they'll ever find happiness haven't felt the way he did? I also identified with his struggles to feel happy even amidst the success and fulfillment he had achieved, as I've been there, too.

I felt that the book dragged a bit in places, particularly in the lead-up to the birth of Scissor Sisters. There was a lot of the same story over and over again, just with different celebrities or men he knew mentioned. (At times it feels like he has met or knew nearly everyone in the music business, as well as some celebrities!!) But Shears' writing style is engaging and self-deprecating, which made this tremendously readable. (I'd imagine the audio book, if one is produced, will be terrific if he reads it himself!)

Even if you don't know his music or aren't tantalized by his physical appeal, Boys Keep Swinging is a worthwhile read. I don't often pick up celebrity memoirs unless I think there's some depth to be found, and there was lots to be found here.

NetGalley and Atria Books provided me an advance copy of the book in exchange for an unbiased review. Thanks for making this available!

Thank you again to NetGalley for an advance reader copy. The biography is a very entertaining story of the life of Jake Shears, best known as one of the Scissors Sisters. I liked the way he described the struggles with his personal life and how to find his place in the music business. Not into the music business myself I found it a bit hard to follow all the names of people mentioned. Of course, it changed after the band became famous and were acquainted with stars like George Michael, Kylie Minogue or Elton John. A good read I'd recommend. Sadly enough the book ended at a time when the band's greatest success was still ahead of them. Would have loved to read on....

Rating: 4.0/5.0

This memoir was very well written. I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Jake Shears have had his ups and downs, success and setbacks but he remains the guy who recovers from those setbacks. In this memoir, he tells us about his life from childhood to adolescent. His sexuality and how he was able to cope with it at a young age. There is also a lot of his relationships with different people and how they affected his life and how he affected their lives, the jobs he had before Scissor Sisters. The rise of the band and his addiction problem and how he battled it.

I loved this book because it is very wild yet at the same time very emotional. Jake Shears have lived a wild fascinating life and turned that life on paper in a wonderful way. His writing is fun to read and I did not expect that from a rockstar. Now the only thing left is to turn this book into a movie!

The book will be released on 20th Feb 2018 and I was lucky to grab it from Netgalley in the read now section.