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kaylamarie's review
4.0
I knew I was going to love this book when the opening quote referenced Washington Irving. I discovered Irving's work last year and fell in love. Ken Babbs uses Irving to explain that the book is non-fiction that has been embellished. I can see why he went this route as it's hard to write events truthfully that have taken place decades before.
Some of the stories I was already quite familiar with (you may be as well) so it did make the first section a bit hard to get through. You can tell that these earlier stories were quite truthful as he had the tapes from their infamous bus trip and interviews to rely on. I wasn't excited to pick it up, until I got past their bus adventures. While Babbs describes the book as 70 self contained stories it does flow together as one continuous narrative. Sometimes I wasn't aware how much time was passing between each story until he discusses the death of Hunter S. Thompson.
My favorite parts were when he met up with members of the Beat movement. If you are at all interested in the Beat or Hippie movement I would suggest giving this a read.
Some of the stories I was already quite familiar with (you may be as well) so it did make the first section a bit hard to get through. You can tell that these earlier stories were quite truthful as he had the tapes from their infamous bus trip and interviews to rely on. I wasn't excited to pick it up, until I got past their bus adventures. While Babbs describes the book as 70 self contained stories it does flow together as one continuous narrative. Sometimes I wasn't aware how much time was passing between each story until he discusses the death of Hunter S. Thompson.
My favorite parts were when he met up with members of the Beat movement. If you are at all interested in the Beat or Hippie movement I would suggest giving this a read.
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