Horror Stories by Liz Phair

In 1998, my dorm cafeteria played music videos on multiple screens in the dining space. I was sitting in a booth, with a few girls from my floor when the video started. A very blown out video, full of home movies, an annoyed looking bride, and a woman in a (very 90s) slip dress, laying on a mattress. "You're lucky to even know me, you're lucky to be alive." Liz Phair immediately became my favorite singer and I have never looked back.

Horror Stories by Liz Phair is not a rock and roll memoir. There are no groupies, no t.v.'s being tossed into pools. Horror Stories is one woman's reflection on her childhood, her marriage, her boyfriends, her vagina, her life, her celebrity.

Much like her lyrics, Liz is open and honest in these essays. She writes of her paranoia of being lost in a snowstorm, of being trapped by spiders in a tree with her brother, of being in labor for hours. She writes about the end of her marriage, the memory of a girl she regrets not helping, and about boyfriends who changed her life, even when the relationship was full of pain. She writes in her own voice, not trying to be anything but herself. And being oneself is one of the most powerful lessons I learned in 1998 and again in 2019. Liz has long been one of my favorite musicians and this collection of musings adds more fuel to my fandom fire.

Whitechocolatespaceegg, Whip-Smart and Exile in Guyville changed my life in my 20's and Horror Stories is a welcome addition to my life in my 40s.

Thank you to NetGalley, the publishers and to my queen, Liz Phair, for the opportunity to read and review this book.