Boys Keep Swinging.

Boys Keep Swinging is the autobiography/memoir of Jake Shears who is the lead singer of The Scissor Sisters.

The first part of the story details his childhood in Arizona. The second part recounts his life as an adolescent in Seattle where he comes out as a gay man. In the remainder of the book, he talks about his life after college in NYC where he forms the Scissor Sisters and the success the band achieves.

I love biographies of rock stars, in fact, they are one of my favourite genres of books. And while I'm not a die-hard Scissor Sister fan I like them enough to have two of their albums and I once saw them live.  I was looking forward to reading this but I am left with conflicting feelings. I can't say that I disliked this book but the first two parts of it were slow going and took me some time to get through. Once the story moved to New York I enjoyed the book immensely as I love reading about places I know and I was familiar with the bars, clubs and restaurants mentioned.

I can't quite put my finger on it but there was something missing from this book for me. While Jake Shears was very candid about his sexual activities and drug taking I felt that he was holding back in other areas. He talked a little about his creative process, life in the band and on the road, but a lot of the time I felt that he merely scratched the surface without telling the reader the whole tale. There's a fair amount of name-dropping in the book but little in the way of specifics to explain why. 

Bafflingly the book ends in 2006 which I find odd for something that has been published this year. What's happened to Jake in the meantime? Are The Scissor Sisters still together? I honestly don't know the answers to these questions without googling them...I'm sorry to say that I finished this book thinking less of Jake than when I picked it up. I appreciate his candidness but I don't think he did himself any favours and he comes across as being very self-centred. 

If you're a fan of The Scissor Sisters you may want to pick this up, if you're not then I'd probably recommend you skip it.