REBEL GIRL

 Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk by Kathleen Hanna, 336 pgs, © 2024

This is a great punk rock memoir. The writing is short and choppy and it moves pretty quickly--by the second section, Hanna's covered most of her traumatic childhood and is trying to get into college. As the father of a daughter, a lot of this book was kind of a hard read for me. Hanna suffers though physical and emotional abuse after abuse, all at the hands of the men in her life, her own father being the worst--I wanted to push him off of a bridge. And then I found myself getting frustrated with the author when she would occasionally go back to him. She usually did that when she needed something, but I just wanted to shake her and shout "get away from this guy!" At a certain point, she's older and stronger and cuts him off entirely. On some level, this is a good entry text into understanding how alcoholism and trauma runs in families from generation to generation. Hanna internalized all of her trauma and it manifests in self-sabotaging ways throughout her life but she perseveres as she gets involved in the local art scene and ultimately, starts a band in college--Bikini Kill. 

What a life she's had--her contributions to the punk/grunge scene and the Riot Grrrl movement, opening for Sonic Youth, recording with Joan Jett. She's even credited with giving Kurt Cobain the title of Nirvana's first hit single, Smells Like Teen Spirit. By the end of the book. she's faring much better. She's married to Adam Horowitz AKA Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys and they've adopted a son. Her band Bikini Kill has gotten back together and touring and she's genuinely working through a lot of her past trauma and trying to take better care of herself. By the end I was so relieved for her--the whole time you're reading this, you just want good things to happen to her, she seems like such a good person--she reminded me of some of the punk kids I knew in high school.