'Face It' review: One way or another, Debbie Harry was meant to be a star

In her memoir "Face It," Blondie singer Debbie Harry describes a life formed by a desire to leave suburbia and become a performer. That she succeeded is a tribute to her ambition, perseverance, talent and good looks.

The book opens with her heart-rending origin story. Harry's mother gave her up for adoption, reluctantly, in 1945, when Harry — whose given name was Angela Tremble — was 3 months old. She was raised in Hawthorne, New Jersey, by Richard and Cathy Harry and was a tomboy who loved to play in the woods with her dog, Pal. Seeing a show at Radio City Music Hall piqued her interest to perform.

By age 20 Harry was living in the East Village, and her early adventures making music are the most compelling chapters. About her experience playing at the notorious club CBGB, birthplace of punk, Harry writes, "It was a time of felt experience — no special effects, just raw, visceral, uncut living."

In 1974, she and her lover, guitarist Chris Stein, founded Blondie. After playing in New York's punk scene, the group gradually rose to stardom. Unfortunately, fame can make for a dull narrative. Once Harry digs into Blondie's heyday, the book suffers as she rehashes the next album, the next tour and so on.

More engaging are Harry's effort to categorize her music, which she calls a "crossover between glitter-glam and punk," and her insightful commentary on the sexual politics of the music scene.

Blondie disbanded in 1982. Stein, broke up with her, and she went on to make solo albums. Faced with mounting debt, for a short while Harry became a professional wrestler and made movies, most notably John Waters' "Hairspray." In 1997, Blondie reformed and continues to tour.

Readers, both familiar and unfamiliar with Harry's career, will enjoy this memoir because on nearly every page she proves she's more than a pretty blonde in a pair of tight pants. If she sometimes comes across as self-interested, so what? She was a young woman who fell under the spell of New York and made herself into the performer she always knew she'd become, one who went on to cast her own spell on millions.