Just Kids by Patti Smith: A review
There’s a moment, reading Just Kids, when you feel it—not a calm pull, but a raging wave that sweeps over you, drags you under, spits you back to the shore, only for you to stagger up and plunge back in willingly. Patti Smith’s tale isn’t a sweet song of remembrance; it’s a cry from the depths of her soul, laced with longing, lust, regret, and, above all, devotion to a man who both saved and scarred her. You read, and you find yourself intertwined with them—Patti and Robert Mapplethorpe, two kids clinging to each other, clawing their way up from obscurity, just to see their names flicker in the big city lights.
Smith doesn’t just tell you about love; she shows you the grip of it, raw and unfiltered. In her words, love isn’t a sanctuary; it’s a battlefield, marked by sacrifice and near-madness. This is a story about bruised knees, cigarette burns, and blood under your fingernails. It’s about the pain that comes when two people are tethered together not by peace but by a shared dream that consumes them whole. And there’s a beauty to that—a kind of radiant, aching beauty. Patti and Robert weren’t just lovers; they were soldiers, navigating the chaos of a world that neither wanted them nor could keep them apart. They fought for each other, with each other, against each other, in a way that makes love feel dangerous, volatile, and, ultimately, more honest.
They were lost, both of them. Lost in New York City, in the Chelsea Hotel, in a maze of dreams that were always out of reach. And this loss is a thing you feel deeply in Smith’s pages—like the prickle of salt on a wound. She doesn’t sugarcoat their journey or shy away from their hunger, that gnawing, insatiable desire to be someone, anyone, in a world that never promised them anything. Just Kids isn’t a romantic tale. It’s the kind of love story that leaves scars, the kind that brands you for life. And maybe that’s the allure. You read it, and you want to believe that some loves are worth the agony, that there’s a holiness in this kind of devotion.
Their story feels like a fever dream, a desperate attempt to touch the stars, even if it meant getting burned. Robert, with his mesmerizing beauty and dangerous appetite for fame, was both a muse and a tormentor. Smith loved him with a kind of reckless abandon, the kind of love that swallows you whole, leaves you gutted and gasping for air. You feel her devotion, her reverence, but also her despair. She was drawn to him, not despite his darkness, but because of it. And that’s where the pain seeps in—because, deep down, she knew Robert would never fully belong to her. He was always chasing something else, something darker and unattainable.
In Just Kids, you don’t just witness the rise of an artist—you watch the slow, steady descent of a friendship twisted by ambition, jealousy, and desire. You see Smith grappling with the agony of knowing she wasn’t enough to fill the void inside Robert. No matter how fiercely she loved him, no matter how many nights she spent by his side, whispering dreams into his ear, she could never hold him. And that’s the tragedy. She was always a little too human for him, too grounded in a world he longed to transcend. Their love was never going to save him, or her. It was a kind of divine madness, a ritual of pain and beauty that left them both shattered.
Smith writes with an intimacy that is almost unbearable, as if each word is torn from her body, laid bare for you to witness. She remembers every touch, every argument, every whispered promise that was later broken. And you, as a reader, can’t look away. She brings you into her wounds, invites you to feel the rawness of it all, the mess they made of each other in their attempt to create something beautiful. Her prose is haunted, filled with ghosts of a past that still lingers, a past she can’t shake even as she tries to move forward.
In the end, Just Kids is a story about sacrifice—the price you pay for art, for love, for loyalty to a person who could never stay. Smith sacrificed parts of herself, pieces of her heart, her sanity, for a man who was always out of reach. And there’s anger there, a festering resentment that bubbles beneath the surface. She wanted to save him, to keep him close, but he was already slipping through her fingers, a phantom she could never fully grasp. He left her with memories, fragments of a life they once shared, but he also left her with questions—about love, about loyalty, about the worth of it all.
There’s a bittersweet ache that lingers after the final page. You’re left with the knowledge that some love stories aren’t meant to have happy endings. Some connections are forged in fire and destined to end in ashes. Smith loved him fiercely, but it was a love that demanded too much, that left her broken yet unwilling to let go. And maybe that’s the lesson she leaves us with—that sometimes, the greatest acts of devotion are also the ones that hurt the most.
So you close the book, and you sit there, haunted by their story, by the beauty and brutality of it all. You wonder if you could love like that, if you would be willing to sacrifice your peace, your sanity, for someone who could never be yours. And maybe, just maybe, you find yourself longing for that kind of passion, that kind of reckless abandon, even as you know it would tear you apart.
