The Best Music Books of 2024: Joni Mitchell, Lisa Marie Presley, Kathleen Hanna, Rolling Stones and More

variety.com:

“Rebel Girl: My Life as a Feminist Punk” Kathleen Hanna — This memoir from Hanna, the cofounder and frontperson of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre and one of the most influential feminists in the music world, is equal parts triumph and trauma.

It can be a harrowing read at times, due almost entirely to the horrific behavior of so many of the men who have passed through her life.

While it includes everything a fan of Hanna’s music could want from a memoir — her experiences in the indie-rock milieu from the late ‘80s to the ‘00s (and the sexual politics that accompanied them), how her groups formed and her songs were written, her friendships with Kurt Cobain and other luminaries of the time, and finally her marriage to Beastie Boy and seemingly perfect husband Adam Horovitz — the characters who resound most are the sexually abusive father, the stalkers, the rapists (including one who had been her best friend), the casual molesters, and the seemingly countless men who, like countless other men with countless other women, aggressively imposed themselves on a woman who was just trying to go about her life.

There’s also her nearly lifelong struggle with Lyme disease (which was undiagnosed for decades), the hate mail and random abuse her ideas and stances have earned, and, of course, being physically attacked by Courtney Love at Lollapalooza in 1995.