Crowe’s charming new memoir is an elegy for a lost time and place ... As he does so often in this book, Crowe pulls the reader in with his keenly observant eye ... Reminds us of what has been lost, the myths and mystique that fueled our rock star fantasies and gave the music an aura of magic.
One of the greatest tricks cool people play on the rest of us is convincing us in their memoirs that they were and are profoundly uncool ... The book reads like a novelization of [Almost Famous], so much so that it makes you consider the nature of memory. I’m not suggesting Crowe is making things up in this memoir. I’m merely suggesting that the stories he wrote for the movie may have been so reverberant that they began to subtly bleed into his own ... There is little that’s grainy or truly revelatory about his own life and loves. The book ends before his directing career has begun, thus leaving room for a sequel. Everything is a bit gauzy, soft-core. God help me, I read this book quickly and enjoyed it anyway.
Captures an extraordinarily inventive period in which rock music was stretching out in all directions ... While his journalistic ethics may have wilted in the megawatt glow of his favourite rock stars, Crowe’s writing style flourished. In The Uncool, he succinctly evokes both eccentric characters and the era they represented.
Riveting ... Crowe delivers a memoir that is both a backstage pass to rock ‘n’ roll and a master class in storytelling, warm, vivid, and irresistibly uncool in the best way.
Captivating ... This is a remarkable and moving memoir, with an engaging and unforgettable cast of characters, that will resonate well beyond fans of celebrated '70s music.
Crowe gives us an even fuller, more rollicking account of his years traveling with and writing about some of the biggest musical acts of the 1970s ... It feels unkind to quibble with such a generous, entertaining memoir. Still, The Uncool is maybe a little too humble ... Funny and honest, like the best of Crowe’s work.
Lively ... Readers who only know Crowe from his screen credits will savor the behind-the-scenes insights, but the book’s real power lies in its portrait of a teenager chasing his heroes. It’s a delight.
