Dave Thompson: Bad Reputation: The Unauthorized Biography of Joan Jett (2011)
Cherie Currie (w/ Tony O'Neill): Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway – An Insider's Candid Autobiography of '70s Punk Rock, Addiction, and Fame (2011)
Lita Ford (w/ James Wood): Living Like a Runaway: A Memoir (2016)
The Runaways produced just one all-time-classic song ("Cherry Bomb"), not even a full album's worth of must-hear material, and fell apart before most of the world ever knew they existed, but their pioneering efforts in a painfully chauvinistic rock world speaks volumes.
Multiple volumes, as these three biographies obviously attest.
Joan Jett may be the most famous and successful Runaway of them all, but Bad Reputation is easily the weakest of these books, and I frankly wouldn't waste your time on Dave Thompson's adequate but distant unauthorized biography.
Though I absolutely loved Thompson's curmudgeonly Classic Rock Manifesto, here, he often writes on automatic pilot about a subject so reclusive and taciturn, she'll likely never put pen to paper herself, and if she does, I'm not sure Jett will have much to say.
Heck, Joan was more involved with Currie‘s book than her own -- contributing the foreword.
Aside from finally addressing Jett's homosexuality, Thompson can shed little light on her personal life and spends most of his time putting her career into historical context, which at least means recognizing the prejudice and misogyny she faced and overcame when she went solo.
But as Jett's career relevance and success declines after the 1980s, all Thompson can do is efficiently catalog her albums, tours, awards, and collaborations (including the seeds of the 2010 Runaways movie) to mask his lack of access to the artist herself.
Now, Lita Ford's autobiography is another matter: not only does she win the 'Best Title Award' with Living Like a Runaway, but she also provides the most lucid, to the point of callous, recollections of the Runaways' chaotic and meteoric run through the late '70s.
Refreshingly and unapologetically slutty, she casually lists the heavy metal idols she jammed and slept with (Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Iommi, Nikki Sixx, etc.), as was her right as "one of the boys": challenging gender prejudices with her unwavering belief that she was their equal.
Lita was also resilient enough to rise from the Runaways' ashes with her own string of best-selling albums, delivered in the midst of the ultra-misogynistic hair metal '80s, no less; but she really topped herself when it came to lousy marriages and divorces.
After narrowly escaping her temporary engagement to an abusive Iommi, she tied the knot with wild man W.A.S.P. guitarist Chris Holmes, then followed that with an even bigger cock rock laughing stock in erstwhile Tuff and Nitro frontman Jim Gillette!
Together, they quit L.A. and celebrity for a lonely existence with their two sons in Turks and Caicos, but this ended in a heartbreaking estrangement that casts a dark, disturbing, unresolved pall on the book's final chapters, even as Lita resurrected her musical career.
And then there's Runaways frontwoman Cherie Currie's 2011 autobiography, Neon Angel, which I only realized after purchasing, was actually different from, although based on, a previous edition published way back in 1989, swapping co-author Neil Schusterman with Tony O’Neill.
If you read just one of these books, this had better be it, because Currie's intimate, soul-baring account reveals all of the manipulation and exploitation endured by The Runaways at the hands of an abusive music industry, uncomprehending music fans, and especially their controversial Sven Gali manager Kim Fowley.
Like a white-knuckle roller-coaster ride, Currie takes readers from the highs of the mid '70s L.A. nightlife, touring Japan with The Runaways, and the set of the movie Foxes with costar Jodie Foster, to the depths of her broken home, destructive drug addiction, and a near-fatal rape (actually two of them!) that will leave you sick to your stomach.
By the time she hit rock bottom at age 24 (remember, she was just 15 when she joined The Runaways), Currie had seen it all, and her brave reinvention (alternately working as a drug counselor, personal trainer, and chainsaw sculptor!) should be a source of pride and inspiration.
As were all three of these women, who proved their incredible strength by succeeding and surviving in a period and patriarchy of almost unimaginable sexism and disrespect -- the likes of which will undoubtedly shock modern generations.
And that does it for Women's History Month 2026 ... thanks for reading and continuing to fight for gender equality ... we still have a long way to go, but these books prove that progress IS possible, if painfully slow.
The Runaways: The Runaways (1976)
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts: I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll (1981)
Lita Ford: Out for Blood (1983)
Buy from: Abe Books / Thrift Books / Better World Books