Frank Cottrell-Boyce at The New Statesman:
You don’t turn to Thorn’s memoirs (this is her second; she is also a New Statesman columnist) for rock ’n’ roll name-dropping, but for someone who can – to quote her quoting Updike – “give the mundane its beautiful due”. My brother-in-law says of being a fan of the band: “The only difference between them and us was that we were listening to Everything but the Girl, while they were in Everything but the Girl.” The past is another planet and the diary twinkles with the arcane poetry of lost brand names – Aqua Manda, Green Shield Stamps.
Though it does turn out that Thorn was a bit more rock ’n’ roll than you might have thought. There’s a lot of underage drinking (“Southern Comfort, gin and orange. LOVELY!”) and sexual danger: “Creep asked me to dance again but I said no – found out he is a policeman. Yikes!” She was 13 when she wrote that, but the boys, she says, were “always older”.
more here.