Boys Keep Swinging: A Memoir

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The daytime set on the Pyramid stage had been lighthearted: We’d played as the crowd was bathed in a gentle, temporary rain. Best-known as the frontman of the Scissor Sisters, Shears became a global star when the band took off with the release of their self-titled 2004 album thanks to hits such as Take Your Mama and Filthy/Gorgeous.

Whether it was some toy slime creature that didn’t secrete like it had in the commercial, or Michael Jackson not actually performing in Captain EO at Disneyland—it was just a 3-D movie of him that played all day long—the world was full of exaggerations.

I’m a massive fan of music bios, and saw the Scissor Sisters early on supporting Duran Duran, and fell in love with their music. Sometimes a little shocking and not for the prudish (but you knew that if you have followed SS or Jakes career), this book made me laugh and made me cry, made me gasp and made me want to sit in the car and hear more.

I amassed the little bulging chunks of plastic as if they were tender prophecies: steroid-fueled bodybuilders I could hold in my hands, just as I might one day hold the real thing in the flesh. And [Shears] is just as clever a narrator as he is a lyricist, keenly sketching the gay bars and nightclubs that fostered the electroclash scene in which the band spawned. Before there was Jake Shears and Scissor Sisters and kikis to be having, there was Jason Sellards, a self-professed born showman who, even as a kid, knew he was destined for greater things. She had long black hair and smoked as she cut, a cigarette clamped between her lips while I sucked on my binky.

The VHS boxes were graphic and scary, and I hovered near their lewd cardboard cases until I was made to retreat to the children’s section, where I supposedly belonged. As soon as the first specter popped out at the five-minute mark, the fabric of my reality unraveled even further. I knew in my heart that we were losing our lives as we knew them, but I also knew that the trade-off was going to be a singular experience that few people get.

Shears drops many names but even if you didn't know the characters involved you would still be able to "know" them through Shears' words.

Especially during a scary time for gay people and seeing how that affected his coming out process and coming of age. In the bestselling tradition of Bruce Springsteen's Born to Run, Patti Smith's Just Kids, and Carrie Brownstein's Hunger Makes Me a Modern Girl, the lead singer of the multiplatinum-selling band Scissor Sisters explores his evolution as a young artist: coming of age in the Pacific Northwest and Arizona, his entry into New York City's electrifying, ever-changing music scene, and the Scissor Sisters' rise as they reached international fame in the early 2000s.

This novel is about Spears growing up in Arizona, coming to terms with his sexuality and then the creation of the scissor sisters.

I felt that the book dragged a bit in places, particularly in the lead-up to the birth of Scissor Sisters. Admitting the latter was a good way to make money he reveals that he used to think what his mother would think if she knew what he was doing to get by. I made the mistake of putting it down for a couple weeks and by the time I was able to come back to it, I only got through a couple pages before realizing I was no longer interested. I think the main thing to acknowledge is just how quickly it arrived, with no damage and beautifully wrapped!