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Hit So Hard begins in rock drummer Patty Schemel's teenage years with her growing up in the Pacific Northwest, realizing she is gay, and discovering her heavy identification with punk rock--as well as the beginnings of the alcoholism and drug addictions that would nearly kill her. Playing in a variety of local bands, her skills were noticed by another local musician, Kurt Cobain (he always maintained she was his favorite drummer), who recommended Patty to his soon-to-be wife Courtney Love. The three of them were housemates during the biggest years of Nirvana and Hole and were living together when Kurt and Courtney's daughter Francis Bean was born. If you've seen the HBO Cobain documentary Montage of Heck, most of the (painfully) candid home movie footage was shot by Patty. Hit So Hard offers riveting insight into, and a front seat to, the Kurt and Courtney show, from the massive success of Nirvana and Hole, to Cobain's suicide, to the death of Hole's bassist Kristen Pfaff from a heroin overdose just two months later, as well as Hole's completely insane Live Through This world tour right after. Hit So Hard brings the reader into the eye of the storm that swirled around Courtney Love, an unpredictable, addicted, grieving, raw mess of emotions. Throughout all this, Patty's own addictions to alcohol and heroin grew exponentially, and she was eventually fired from the band, entered multiple rehabs, and found herself homeless, living under an L.A. freeway underpass, breaking into homes, scamming, and prostituting for drug money. It's a harrowing tale of rock 'n' roll highs and lows, and the story of her recovery is as inspiring as her fall was devastating.