Nerd Girl Rocks Paradise City

January 1, 2006
Adult/High School -Having graduated from William and Mary, Soffee, the nerd girl of the title and a longtime fan of hair-metal bands, decided that Virginia was not the place to enjoy her passion for the music. And so, with a vague statement of interest in her writing on music by the editor of a metal magazine in Hollywood, she set off for L.A. What she found there was not what she had expected: certainly not her dream of becoming the next great music critic. But the years she spent in L.A. were not without interest as she hit high points and low before having to accept the reality of the situation, aided by the triumph of grunge over metal and her own alcohol and drug addictions. This is not an unusual story; any number of memoirs by young writers chronicle those first uncertain years out of school. Yet Soffee's stands out for its humor and its lack of self-absorption and self-importance. The author has no illusions about the reality of her life at that time, nor does she now condemn it as wasted years. Neither a cautionary tale nor a paean to living it up, "Nerd Girl" will resonate with teens." -Ted Westervelt, Library of Congress, Washington, DC"

Copyright 2006 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2005
In her second book (after the wellreceived Snake Hips: Belly Dancing and How I Found True Love), Soffee recounts her journey from East Coast college undergrad to Hollywood rock journalist during the mid1980s heyday of heavy metal hair bands. Told in the firstperson present tense, this memoir reads more like a diarya very boring diaryprimarily of interest to the writer and maybe the people she mentions. One pillpopping, boozy night out watching a band blends into the next, and Soffee offers the usual outsider's take on Los Angeles: "Saturday afternoon, my third month in Los Angeles...It seems like everyone in Hollywood is tall, tan, and lean, with even, perfect features and straight white teeth." Even the LA riots are mere window dressing for the author's allconsuming world of Quaaludes, mediocre metal bands, and even more mediocre sex. While cameos by punk godfather Iggy Pop and former Misfits singer Glenn Danzig may draw in the slacker set, this is not recommended.David Valencia, King Cty. Lib. Syst., WA

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 2005
Cheeky humor, requisite irony, and passionately offhand exuberance fill Soffee's memories of being a heavy-drinking rock writer during the hair-band heyday in L.A., when long locks flung extravagantly about was way, way cool. A mock-interview frames flashbacks as the William and Mary alumna, who earned rocker credentials running a cable radio show featuring sixties garage bands, self-discloses. She then set out to make her mark in L.A. with gonzo music journalist Lester Bangs as her model, a pursuit that devolved into a picaresque parade of episodes, which she freights with on-target observations (on what "the look" of record store cashiers and college DJs says: "I make minimum wage, collect action figures, and live in my mother's basement, but man, am I COOL") in the recounting. Eventually, and after many adventures and a variety of substances abused, Soffee was brought into recovery from chemical dependence by a former Wolfman Jack sidekick and discovered a new meaning of "cool."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)