In Hippie Chick, a rebellious teenager finds her mother dead in the bathroom. To save her from living alone with a difficult father, her older sister sends her a one-way plane ticket to leave New Jersey. Landing in San Francisco, she is thrust into a lifestyle way beyond what she is ready for, and that challenges all previous notions of how one behaves. It is 1963, and we are brought along as … along as Ilene becomes immersed in the unfolding of the sixties during the earliest days of sexual freedom, psychedelic drugs, the jazz scene, and rock ’n’ roll. This is a deeply personal story of how one young woman manages to survive and even to thrive in the face of the whirlwind of experiences coming at her. It is filled with a rich tapestry of moments that run the gamut from the sublime to the ridiculous, and everything in between.
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Hippie Chick is the clear eyed memoir of Ilene English, a young girl set loose in San Francisco in the 1960’s. Ms. English recounts her experiences with sex, drugs, and rock roll in honest and concise prose. Her life was adventurous, reckless and heart-breaking at times, but her spirit and love and desire for purpose, community, and family shines through. Her travels took her from New Jersey to California, from Hawaii to Tennessee, to Oregon and then back to California. I especially loved the section about her life in Eugene, Oregon and her work with the Farmer’s Market. Highly recommend to anyone who lived through the sixties (like me) or anyone who wants to know what it was like.
If you’ve ever been interested in what it was like participating in the 60’s world of drugs, sex and rock n’ roll then this is the book that will take you there.
Ilene English shares her very personal, sometimes heartbreaking, alway inspiring story of a young women who finds her way through a time when so many didn’t make it out alive. Overdoses and young soldiers dying in Vietnam were rampant. She not only survived, but thrived.
Ultimately, what I took from this book is the author’s gift as a teacher. We can all learn much from her experiences.
I loved it! I have known the author well for close to half a century and learned things about her in this reading that I never knew. It was a very interesting tale, indeed, and kept me occupied nonstop until its completion. I know that she struggled, not only in her private life, but in putting this autobiographical piece together. I would highly recommend it to anyone who survived the 60s and enjoys a good story. Dave U.
I loved Hippie Chick for its honesty. It’s a very compelling story. One thing that stood out for me was the fact that English depicts herself as a free spirit and a person not afraid to experiment (with drugs, for example) — but when it comes to mothering, she is instinctively brilliant at being present and solid for her child. This was very moving to me. Hippie Chick is a terrific ride and I highly recommend it.
Far out, man. Ilene English”s account of her experiences in the ’60s, ’70s, and ’80s was a delightful trip down memory lane. It brought back, for me, many groovy recollections of those amazing times. Not many stories of that era have been told from the “chicks” point of view. I loved it.
What a rich and much-needed glimpse of the 60s through a young woman’s eyes, starting in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury and ending in Eugene Oregon! The new culture and the events that shaped it unfold in front of Ilene English and she becomes part of it, sharing her fresh and innocent 16-yr old view, having just arrived from the East Coast to escape her father and live with her older sister. We experience with her the heady freedom, the bewildering array of options in the world of sex, drugs, and spirituality, the deep knowing that what they were doing was changing American culture, and the search for guidance about how to live and how to treat others well in this new culture. This is a world that many of us missed, learned about later, or saw only from the outside (In 1967, my LA suburban family vacation to San Francisco included a drive through the Haight to observe the ‘hippies.’). So to see the era’s ideas, ideals, and yearnings emerge through English’s clear, level-headed observations and her sometimes joyous and sometimes painful experiences feels like a privileged peek into these years. Just as good as the rich cultural history are English’s reflections on her part in the experiences, with her adult self looking back on it. Overall, it is a compelling, personal account of this time.
What a wild ride! I enjoyed reading this author’s charming tales about life in the 60’s: rock and roll, free-love and psychedelics. It was fun to follow her on her free-spirited adventures across the country as she travels from urban communities to remote communes. This memoir is an open and honest coming of age story about identity, family, relationships, parenthood, self-discovery, happiness and hippies.
I think that this memoir is a very realistic depiction of a young woman going through this very turbulent time in America. I am the same age as the author, and though I had a different personal experience compared to Ilene, the feeling of that time is very true. Living through the coming of age during the Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, Vietnam War period, the changes in the Arts, and the increasing advent of illegal and dangerous drugs was an exhilarating and scary time as well. English did a good job in telling her story during this exceptional period in America.
This is a fascinating, exceptionally well-written and great, quick read. In fact, the bulk of the book–from when Ilene gets to San Francisco until her daughter is born–is impossible to put down. It’s a cautionary tale for me. A number of years later, as I was getting on campus and into the anti-war politics of the time, we looked to the Haight-Ashbury “pioneers” as the authentic hippies (in my word we said “freaks”), deeply into the sex, drugs and rock and roll of the time. This book tells that story–what would or could have happened if one of us had broken loose, dropped out of school and hitched to the nirvana of California. It seems it was everything we were warned about, ha! And challenging, though fun and fulfilling. Thanks for taking the plunge for me, Ilene.
This book takes you from Ilene’s childhood through her present day, with an emphasis on how her time as a hippie in the 60’s affected everything about her life. Through her eyes we see the evolution of a culture and the impact on the lives of those people involved. She writes honestly and with a clear understanding of how the different experiences of her life led her to where she is today.
I am roughly 20 years younger than the author. Her coming of age time was my childhood. All of the author’s 60’s experiences were a revelation for me, especially because it is a personal memoir, not stark history.
In particular, her interactions with her nephew and her daughter resonated with me.
Hippie Chick by Ilene English is a great memoir and autobiography focussing on the author herself growing up (albeit way too fast) in the 60s.
Reading about her trials and difficulties in trying to find out who she is and where she belongs, and the honest mistakes and heartbreaking losses she experiences on that road to get to that destination, are touching and sometimes very hard to read. You want to be able to travel back in time to help, but seeing your own adolescence and young adulthood in her, you realize she has to (and will) find her way on her own.
A touching read. 5/5 stars
Rachel Fox (Reviewer)
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Full Text:
Hippie Chick by Ilene English is a great memoir and autobiography focussing on the author herself growing up (albeit way too fast) in the 60s. Reading about her trials and difficulties in trying to find out who she is and where she belongs, and the honest mistakes and heartbreaking losses she experiences on that road to get to that destination, are touching and sometimes very hard to read. You want to be able to travel back in time to help, but seeing your own adolescence and young adulthood in her, you realize she has to (and will) find her way on her own. A touching read. 5/5 stars.
English’s life story is an interesting one – often tragic, often fun, usually fueled by poor decisions (both her own and those of people around her). As she describes all of the people moving in and out of her life (especially the guys), the rampant narcissism and selfishness in the name of “peace and love” is hard to stomach. If anyone is still viewing “the counterculture” through rose-colored glasses, this book is a necessary rude awakening. I was relieved when English named these problems, and dove a little bit into the why and the ripple effect of the consequences (though I wish there was more of that).
The writing was a little bit stilted and could’ve used more polishing, and in places English still comes off as that aimless, naive girl with stars in her eyes. But overall this held my attention well and was an engrossing look behind the curtain of the idolized 1960s.