Hunger makes me a modern girl : a memoir / Carrie Brownstein.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Brownstein's memoir of growing up in the Seattle suburb of Redmond, her obsessive love of the indie music scene that developed in the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s, and the birth and maturity of her band, Sleater-Kinney, will delight fans. Brownstein proves an articulate and thoughtful writer, not flinching from her difficult family life, her immature mistakes as she found her feet in the music world, or her role in Sleater--Kinney's breakup. The author's reading is sincere, clear, and personal whether the subject matter is grim or hilarious. Verdict Recommended for fans of Brownstein's music (Portlandia fans should note that the show is conspicuous in its absence from this book), those who enjoyed Sara Marcus's Girls to the Front, and readers looking for a smart and expressive rock bio. ["A strong, engaging pop culture memoir: personal detail, a little dish, and a well-written look at what made the music, and the culture that spawned it, matter": LJ 10/1/15 starred review of the Riverhead hc.]-Jason Puckett, Georgia State Univ. Lib., Atlanta © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

In performing the audio edition of her new memoir, Brownstein, creator and star of TV comedy series Portlandia and a member of the band Sleater-Kinney, maintains an engaging presence with her conversational style. Despite both the emotionally charged nature of Sleater-Kinney's feminist-punk music and the coming-of-age/relationship themes in the story line, Brownstein opts for an understated emotional tone, preferring to leave the screaming on stage. The recording does include clips of original music by Brownstein, in addition to an interview in which she discusses the process of penning her book. One of the most intriguing questions she tackles is the almost total absence of references to Portlandia from her autobiographical narrative. Even listeners not steeped in indie music can at least appreciate the display of artistic devotion. A Riverhead hardcover. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

Booklist Review

Bookended with sea changes in the life of Sleater-Kinney, Brownstein's memoir is as much about the band as it is about herself (minus her Portlandia fame). Her descriptions of her troubled Pacific Northwest childhood set the stage for her arrival on Olympia's lively punk scene. There, amid sweaty clubs and the intellectualism of Evergreen College, she found a rich community and a serious collaborator in Corin Tucker, and Sleater-Kinney was born. Several successful albums later, however, the stresses of touring and Brownstein's health problems took their toll, culminating in an unsettling blowup, a scene she recounts in an apologetic tone. Brownstein flips easily from brainy ruminations on nostalgia, fandom, and record labels to trenchant stories about sexism, music journalism, and how a soy allergy not drugs or alcohol brought her to her knees on tour. Though the scattershot tone makes for a lack of cohesiveness, her vivid Sleater-Kinney stories and descriptions of their albums are downright irresistible. Sleater-Kinney fans went nuts late last year when the trio broke their years-long hiatus, and Brownstein's memoir will give them more to salivate over.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2015 Booklist

Kirkus Book Review

First-class account of the life and times of an essential riot grrrl and the band she helped create. In this debut memoir, Brownstein, co-founder of the iconic punk band Sleater-Kinney, traces her evolution from the daughter of a secure but secretly unhappy homecloseted gay father, anorexic motherto a gawky teenage rock fan and, ultimately, to becoming an artist in her own right. (She does not delve into her work on Portlandia.) The story of her life is also, inevitably, the story of her own band: meeting (and having a close but tortuous relationship with) co-founder Corin Tucker, the endless process of writing and co-writing songs and guitar leads, firing drummers (they went through three before striking gold with Janet Weiss), and the way life on the road both forges and fractures relationships. For Sleater-Kinney fans, the book is an absolute must, as it not only describes the rise of the band, but also delves into the making of every album. Furthermore, for a band in which song authorship has never been perfectly clear, Brownstein gives some insight as to who wrote what. More than that, the book is deeply personal, an act of self-discovery by a writer both telling her story and coming to understand herself at the same time. "In Sleater-Kinney," she writes, "each song, each album, built an infrastructure, fresh skeletons." The author writes focused and uncluttered prose, choosing the best, most telling details, as she recounts stories that show what it means to perform for the first time and what it means for a woman to be both a fan and a star in a staunchly male-dominated world. Unlike many rock star memoirs, there's no sense that this book is a chore or a marketing effort. It's revealing and riveting. On the page as in her songs, Brownstein finds the right words to give shape to experience. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.