CHRISSIE HYNDE has a way with words. I really liked her lyrics early on, especially on Pretenders, Pretenders II and Learning to Crawl. She could be biting but then she could also be quite tender, which is a real talent – some of us try pretty hard and are neither. So when I heard about her memoir/autobiography, I was hoping that talent would carry over into the book. And some of it does show up in Reckless.
Hynde takes us in a pretty linear fashion through her life, growing up in Ohio, heading off to Mexico, England, France, back home to the States and then back to Europe. She spends over half of the book (which is 312 pages) before the Pretenders even show up, and that made getting that far a bit of a chore. Granted, some of the anecdotes about her growing up were pretty amusing or sad (the one biker gang story especially), but when you consider that the book ends just after (spoiler alert if you don’t already know this) half of the original Pretenders lineup dies, it makes you wonder whether: a) She doesn’t consider anything that’s happened to her since to be important; or b) There’s a second volume coming. My problem is, whenever I start a biography like this I devour it quicker than I can read a “Stop” sign, so I’m almost always wanting more.
Still there are some great stories here and a wealth of photos to look at – and the book, indeed, is aptly titled. Maybe she’ll do a second volume that overlaps with this one so we get even more stories of her and the Pretenders in their heyday.
3/5 (Doubleday)
NuDisc 
Enjoyed this book- left me wanting more-wanna know how the reincarnated Pretenders came to be (Pete Farndon is one of my heros – loved his lines and killer tone..)
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Farndon was a great bass player, and Honeyman-Scott was a great guitarist. It definitely wasn’t the same band after them. But there were still some great records after that.
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