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Carrie Brownstein
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Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl: A Memoir Hardcover – 20 Oct. 2015

by Carrie Brownstein (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,788 ratings
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From the guitarist of the pioneering band Sleater-Kinney, the book Kim Gordon says "everyone has been waiting for" and a New York Times Notable Book of 2015-- a candid, funny, and deeply personal look at making a life--and finding yourself--in music.

Before Carrie Brownstein became a music icon, she was a young girl growing up in the Pacific Northwest just as it was becoming the setting for one the most important movements in rock history. Seeking a sense of home and identity, she would discover both while moving from spectator to creator in experiencing the power and mystery of a live performance. With Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein and her bandmates rose to prominence in the burgeoning underground feminist punk-rock movement that would define music and pop culture in the 1990s. They would be cited as “America’s best rock band” by legendary music critic Greil Marcus for their defiant, exuberant brand of punk that resisted labels and limitations, and redefined notions of gender in rock.
 
HUNGER MAKES ME A MODERN GIRL is an intimate and revealing narrative of her escape from a turbulent family life into a world where music was the means toward self-invention, community, and rescue. Along the way, Brownstein chronicles the excitement and contradictions within the era’s flourishing and fiercely independent music subculture, including experiences that sowed the seeds for the observational satire of the popular television series Portlandia years later.
 
With deft, lucid prose Brownstein proves herself as formidable on the page as on the stage. Accessibly raw, honest and heartfelt, this book captures the experience of being a young woman, a born performer and an outsider, and ultimately finding one’s true calling through hard work, courage and the intoxicating power of rock and roll.

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  1. Print length
    244 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Riverhead Books
  4. Publication date
    20 Oct. 2015
  5. Dimensions
    15.82 x 2.39 x 23.55 cm
  6. ISBN-10
    1594486638
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1594486630
  8. See all details
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Product description

About the Author

Carrie Brownstein is a musician, writer and actor who first became widely known as the guitarist and vocalist of the band Sleater-Kinney and later as a creator, writer and co-star of the Emmy-nominated, Peabody Award winning television show Portlandia. Brownstein's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Believer, Slate, and numerous anthologies on music and culture. She lives in Portland, Oregon and Los Angeles.  

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Riverhead Books; 1st edition (20 Oct. 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 244 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1594486638
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1594486630
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 15.82 x 2.39 x 23.55 cm
  • Customer reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 1,788 ratings

About the author

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Carrie Brownstein

Carrie Brownstein

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Carrie Rachel Brownstein (born September 27, 1974) is an American musician, writer, actress, and comedian. She first came to prominence as a member of the band Excuse 17 before forming the punk-indie trio Sleater-Kinney. During a long hiatus from Sleater-Kinney, she formed the group Wild Flag. During this period, Brownstein wrote and appeared in a series of comedy sketches with Fred Armisen which were then developed into Emmy and Peabody Award-winning satirical comedy TV series Portlandia. Sleater-Kinney has since reunited and Brownstein is touring with the band as well as in support of her new memoir during 2015.

Bio from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Photo by Rock Cousteau [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
1,788 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They describe it as honest and a must-read for Sleater Kinney fans. The writing style is praised as well-crafted and fluent. Readers appreciate the author's honesty and the narrative style as engaging and humorous.

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ReadabilityWriting styleAuthenticityLanguageNarrative style
12 customers mention ‘Readability’12 positive0 negative

Customers find the book engaging and enjoyable. They say it's a good memoir even for those not familiar with Sleater Kinney. The author is honest and forthright in her self-examination, and the second half is great for fans of the band. Overall, readers are satisfied with the book's readability and consider it an essential read for riot grrrl or Sleater Kinnney fans.

"...Her memoir is personal and revealing, showing she is clearly very self aware. She is honest and unstinting in her exposure of her own foibles...." Read more

"...abrasive telling of the story of the band and it's importance in the life of the author...." Read more

"This book does not disappoint. Brownstein has a writing style which lays it all down, bare and honest, which makes for a very gripping read...." Read more

"Its ok. The first half is the usual 'I grew up in a small town in nowheresville and my dad was gay' stuff...." Read more

4 customers mention ‘Writing style’4 positive0 negative

Customers find the writing style engaging and well-written. They describe the author as gifted and well-spoken.

"Carrie Brownstein writes very well and her narrative is peppered with personal philosophy, in a good way...." Read more

"This book does not disappoint. Brownstein has a writing style which lays it all down, bare and honest, which makes for a very gripping read...." Read more

"...She's a gifted writer and appears well spoken and thoughtful in the few videos I've seen with her, so it was with great expectations I opened this..." Read more

""say it was well written, with dope witicisms" -Amy lott 2k17" Read more

3 customers mention ‘Authenticity’3 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the author's honesty. They find the memoir honest and real.

"...She is honest and unstinting in her exposure of her own foibles...." Read more

"...Brownstein has a writing style which lays it all down, bare and honest, which makes for a very gripping read. Tragic at times but always funny...." Read more

"A Very real and honest memoir of one of today's funniest and talented people...." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Language’3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book's language. They find it engaging, entertaining, and thought-provoking.

"...I'm happy to say I feel informed, entertained and provoked to thought in roughly equal measure." Read more

"...Tragic at times but always funny...." Read more

"...It's very well written in a beautiful, fluent and engaging language and she covers her childhood, her early interest in music and first bands as..." Read more

3 customers mention ‘Narrative style’3 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the narrative style. They find it engaging and peppered with personal philosophy. The book is described as an interesting read about Carrie's life and her bandmates. It also touches on music as a force for good.

"Carrie Brownstein writes very well and her narrative is peppered with personal philosophy, in a good way...." Read more

"A powerful, abrasive telling of the story of the band and it's importance in the life of the author...." Read more

"Found this really interesting read of Carrie's life and her experiences. Would recommended for women/girls as an example of how life can affect us." Read more

Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • I.W.
    5.0 out of 5 stars What a Rollercoaster
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 December 2015
    Verified Purchase
    Carrie Brownstein writes very well and her narrative is peppered with personal philosophy, in a good way. Her memoir is personal and revealing, showing she is clearly very self aware. She is honest and unstinting in her exposure of her own foibles. Yet this is also a love story about her bandmates and about music as a force for good. I scooted through this book in a matter of hours, testament to the strength of both the narrative and CB's writing style. As a fan of her work in both Sleater-Kinney and Portlandia, I was fascinated by her beginnings and subsequent trajectory. I'm happy to say I feel informed, entertained and provoked to thought in roughly equal measure.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • Amazon Customer
    4.0 out of 5 stars Sleater Story
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 December 2016
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    A powerful, abrasive telling of the story of the band and it's importance in the life of the author. For someone who came late to listening to them, its a valuable insight into the noise and power of one the great overlooked band.
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  • E. Dreake
    5.0 out of 5 stars Couldn't put this down.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 25 November 2015
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    This book does not disappoint. Brownstein has a writing style which lays it all down, bare and honest, which makes for a very gripping read. Tragic at times but always funny. A self aware sense of humour stops this becoming too self indulent a memoir and instead Brownstein has produced an excellent first book.

    Beginning in her childhood and following on to numerous tales of life on the road with Sleater-Kinney. Fans hoping for mention of her work with Fred Armisen on Portlandia will be disappointed as it is not touched upon. However the charm of the book is not lost, even for those without much interest in the band itself.

    Definitely worth a read.
    2 people found this helpful
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  • therealus
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insight into a rock’n’roll mind
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 February 2017
    Verified Purchase
    After Bruce Springsteen, it had to be Carrie Brownstein. Born To Run, The Boss’s autobiography, gives way to Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, autobiography of the guitarist with Pacific North West band Sleater-Kinney.

    Up until a couple of years ago, Sleater-Kinney only barely registered on my radar, and Carrie Brownstein not at all. That changed with a visit to Seattle’s EMP museum, surely the coolest museum in the world. On the back of wandering through EMP’s Nirvana exhibition I bought the catalogue that complements it. That spurred the purchase of a few S-K CDs and curiosity regarding the origins of the songs.

    In Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl, Brownstein in part at least addresses that curiosity, but more importantly provides an insight into a rock’n’roll mind. Some of the perspective is slightly different from Springsteen’s: as with him there’s a little bit of a hint that Brownstein was trying to impress the girls in choosing music as a career, but the table is slightly more tilted to the overwhelming desire to play music and send a message, where with The Boss the initial impression at least is that it was for him the other way round.

    Brownstein’s account of her early years sees her faced, amongst other things, with the instability of her parents’ marriage on the back of her mother’s anorexia. The anorexia in a way leads Brownstein to become a child expert on that and a number of other ailments. That in turn provides her with an opportunity to give us an amusing, if somewhat macabre, vison of her young self as a quasi-therapist to the adults around her, engaging in informed discussions of their symptoms and remedies. It is reminiscent, in a way, of the doctor character Lucy assumes in the Peanuts comic strip.

    As a teenager she wrangles with common teenage issues regarding the direction she wants her life to head in. She is mostly torn between following a respectable(-ish) path through college and into a regular job and taking herself off that path in order to be a musician. She talks of the many early musical influences in her life, including Nirvana, Bikini Kill and, pivotally, Heavens to Betsy, whose singer Corin Tucker begins as an inspiration, later becomes her mentor as their bands tour together, and eventually becomes the song-writing half of the driving duo behind Sleater-Kinney alongside Brownstein.

    Throughout this period, although the details are different, the general feel of paying your dues is a theme in common with Springsteen’s account, underlining in both the intense motivation to succeed. Life on the road is gruelling and, often, quite yukkily unhygienic, and then there is the issue of finding the right musicians as accompaniment, one which adds further amusing episodes.

    Having noted the similarities with Springsteen, however, there are numerous outstanding differences. First is typified in Brownstein’s account of S-K recording their first album, Call The Doctor. Where Springsteen at the equivalent stage was all confident, professional alpha male, Brownstein is more diffident, and the approach is far more DIY, learn-on-the-job stuff, where Springsteen has an experienced crew on hand.

    The other critical difference relates to gender and sexual orientation and how these are treated by the media. First example: it is doubtful that Springsteen was ever asked why he chose to be in an all-male band (pre Patti Scialfa); yet it seems at least one journalist feels it legitimate to ask S-K why they chose to be in an all-female one. Second, at a time when Brownstein herself had yet to decide on her sexual orientation, another journalist decided it was in the public interest to “out” her as a lesbian. I don’t remember Springsteen ever being outed as a heterosexual. And third, there are the frustrations Brownstein expresses at live reviews that focus more on the clothes the band wore than on the music itself.

    That the press, in Barney Hoskins’s words in his intro to Reckless Daughter, tend toward “the crass and the facile” is of no surprise, unfortunately. Who can forget this headline in the Daily Mail: “Charli XCX flashes her underwear as she takes to the stage at Glastonbury in naughty schoolgirl outfit”? Hoskins’s words referred to the sort of reportage experienced by Rolling Stone’s erstwhile “old lady of the year”, Joni Mitchell, another female star who, as that accolade illustrates, suffered throughout her career at the hands of the dreg-end of the fourth estate. All ambitious female stars, in whichever profession, continue to face this kind of treatment.

    So, to the music. Amongst other things, Brownstein writes about the influences and inspirations behind the decision not to have a bass in the band, the song Jumpers, the album One Beat, and the sound on The Woods (as I suspected, Led Zep were involved). There’s an account of the role played by the Olympia/Seattle scene, punk and Riot Grrrl in the formation of the S-K style. And she amusingly recounts the experience of supporting Pearl Jam: she has nothing but admiration for the band, and especially Eddie Vedder; they found out quite early that the things S-K were able to say to their own fans didn’t necessarily go down well with the wider kind of audience at Pearl Jam shows; and while S-K struggle on with a road crew of three, Pearl Jam have an entire army.

    Towards the end of the book, with her health spinning downwards whilst the band are on tour, Brownstein brings about their disbandment. Fortunately we know there’s a happy ending, and in the Epilogue she briefly writes about their reconstitution and “low key” comeback gig in Spokane, to which fans travel from all over the world.
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  • Zak Stargrinder
    3.0 out of 5 stars The second half is great as thats where she talks about Sleater-Kinney and recording ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2017
    Verified Purchase
    Its ok. The first half is the usual 'I grew up in a small town in nowheresville and my dad was gay' stuff. The second half is great as thats where she talks about Sleater-Kinney and recording the albums. There is nothing at all about Portlandia and how that came which is a bit odd.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Stella Ryuk
    4.0 out of 5 stars Satisfied!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 16 January 2018
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    The book came earlier than expected and I am very satisfied with it!
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  • JMB1779
    5.0 out of 5 stars Fab
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 23 November 2015
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    I am a big fan of Sleater-Kinney and have also enjoyed Carrie Brownstein's writings for NPR. She's a gifted writer and appears well spoken and thoughtful in the few videos I've seen with her, so it was with great expectations I opened this book. I am happy to say that it lived up to the hype. It's very well written in a beautiful, fluent and engaging language and she covers her childhood, her early interest in music and first bands as well as the start to Sleater-Kinney, their touring and the end of S-K part I. (Part II surprisingly - and fortunately - of course was revealed to the world late 2014 along with the new album and tour earlier this year). There is not much about Portlandia or S-K Part II, but I hope she will find inspiration to write about those years at a later stage. I do not want to go into too many details about the book as I could not do it justice. Suffice to say that I recommend it to the fans of S-K or Carrie Brownstein, but also to people interested in the music scene at the time or those who would simply like to enjoy a good piece of writing about an interesting person who was/is part of one of the seminal rock bands of the 90s , 00s - and 10s!
    4.5 stars and very much recommended
    3 people found this helpful
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  • Matthew
    5.0 out of 5 stars A great read
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 May 2022
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    Knowing something of the band I was led to download a sample of the book. After reading this sample in the kindle app i immediately bought the book. Maybe it’s how she writes that i like most, fascinating story teller, would definitely recommend this book
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Gabriela
    5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente.
    Reviewed in Brazil on 6 October 2019
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    Excelente.
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  • Amazon Customer
    5.0 out of 5 stars Eloquent, fascinating even when you don't know much about her
    Reviewed in Germany on 24 February 2017
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    I'm only half way through the book but I am soooo happy I purchased it. I know very little about her, basically nothing about her music but it's still such an interesting read. So many great passages, I might re-read it actually.
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  • a. lloyd spanton
    5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best memoirs I've read
    Reviewed in Canada on 18 February 2016
    Verified Purchase
    A​h, another rock memoir. Hunger Made Me A Modern Girl by Carrie Brownstein came out pretty much on my birthday (Oct 28) and it was by far one of the best birthdays presents I could have gotten (for myself). I am a HUGE Sleater-Kinney fan and have been for a while, but unlike some bands where I need to know every single thing about everyone involved, I actually haven’t read much into the band or the band members personally and admire them solely for their music. So this was a very interesting snapshot behind the scenes for me and going in blind actually made it a very cool.

    ​This didn’t read like a typical memoir to me. It wasn’t laced with accomplishments and stories that basically show how cool Brownstein is. In fact, it was quite the opposite; full of insecurities and personal doubts and embarrassing struggles. It was very intimate in that sense, intimate yet still somehow able to keep the reader at arm’s length. There were personal stories and feelings and insights, but everything still felt pretty guarded.

    Mostly, though, this was a verbal account of Brownstein’s musical career. From her early obsessive fangirl days, to trying to form her first bands, to forming Sleater-Kinney and walking the reader through recording sessions of each Sleater-Kinney album. It was more about what she was thinking and feeling while writing and recording these albums as opposed to any kind of broad general life analysis, which I thought was awesome, considering it is the music that drew me to them in the first place. It resonated with me deeper than anything else would have. Reading back on their early days and discovering their story through Brownstein’s words and memories was a great reader experience.

    The description of that first moment when it all clicked​ for her,​ when she listened to Bikini Kill and suddenly, her entire life was explained in one song. THAT is what music is for me. THAT is a feeling ​I​ will never forget and never get tired of. And that was my favourite part of the book. It was the descriptions of music by someone so passionately a fan of music, that’s what makes this book so great.

    I have read a ton of music books and memoirs and I don’t think any of them are as rawly descriptive about the writing and performing and touring as this here is. ​This was great.

    Originally posted on citygirlscapes.com
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  • Bianca R.R
    5.0 out of 5 stars The Rawness of a Rockstar
    Reviewed in Mexico on 31 January 2016
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    The memoir of the Sleater-Kinney member, Carrie Brownstein, it's the testimony of the Gold Era of the feminist Punk music. It works in many levels, from the personal diary, to the historic narration and through the tale that includes common experiences with other musicians. The rawness, but also the fidelity with which Brownstein writes, makes this book a must-have for any music lover.
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  • Chuck H
    5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommend
    Reviewed in the United States on 4 December 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I picked up the Kindle version of this after seeing an interview with Carrie on Colbert . I wasn't disappointed. Extremely well written. Intelligent, witty, humorous at times, Carrie starts with her early childhood forays into entertainment (the neighborhood kids and family) and through her teenage years the led up to the band Sleater-Kinney. The majority of the book is about the latter, their acceptance into the Northwestern post-punk, post-Riot Grrl scene and beyond, the rigors of touring, band drama, breakdowns - extremely honest without being too self indulgent (well, maybe a little but, hey, it's a memoir). And, in its own way, triumphant. One shouldn't expect life to be that easy for creatives with a vision and a drive to fulfill it.Carrie just lays it out the way it was.

    I'd never heard of Sleater-Kinney before (my youngest son has), and still haven't listened to any of their music (though I'm sure I will at some point). Even if you're not a fan of alternative music genres this is a very good journey into a musical culture and time period.
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