“Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love,” is a candid look into the personal life of the woman best known either as the lead singer of Hole or as Kurt Cobain’s widow.

I was excited to get my hands on this. Love has been idolized and demonized by the press since about 1990 and it seemed she was never given a chance to tell her side of things. On the surface, it seems that Love’s is a clich‚ rock star story, there is her adolescence lived mostly on the run, sometimes as a stripper, the Juvenile Detentions, the drugs, the alcohol, her rise to fame, her train-wreck demise, several comebacks and, now, a book. It seems to fit a mold and, in many ways, it does, but that is to be expected.

Courtney Love Dirty Blonde: The Diaries of Courtney Love Published by Faber and Faber Stater rating (out of five): **1/2

In 2003, Kurt Cobain’s “Journals” was published. It was a big hit with many Nirvana fans and people who wanted a more intimate look in to Cobain’s mind. Unfortunately, “Journals” ended up being nothing more than unintelligible rants and scribbles, mostly of the self-loathing persuasion one would expect from Cobain. During the first hundred or so pages of Love’s “Diaries” it seemed as though she was following the same path of creating an overpriced collection of bad poetry, but thankfully, she did not. The first half of “Diaries” is strewn with concert flyers, foggy photographs, and trivial epiphanies.

It is in the second half of “Diaries” that we see Love as a woman, an adult. The reader sees Love’s insecurities as humble vulnerability as opposed to over-the-top self hatred. Beneath all the melodrama, Love has created a biting and surprisingly sharp manuscript.

For those who wish to go beyond the media image of Love as a drug-crazed has-been, “Diaries” is probably the only medium that will allow anyone to do so. At 300 pages, much of “Diaries” could have been justifiably edited. Because of its depth and intimacy, “Diaries” is, if nothing else, interesting, but because of its gratuitous length and filler material, only die hard fans of Love and her band Hole will find any real joy in sifting through these pages.

Contact ALL correspondent Dave Bolger at [email protected].