Anyone who grew up in the ’90s remembers the mix tape. There was one for every occasion: a cassette of songs ripped from the radio – back when people still listened to radio – or off a burgeoning collections of CDs. Rob Sheffield’s Love is A Mix Tape is rife with nostalgia for that lost practice. He chronicles the ups and downs of his life and love, loss and rebirth, garnished with the songs that drove him through every tumultuous year.

Sheffield, a critic for Rolling Stone, can’t help the pretentiousness of his profession, but his unabashed love for the music of the ’90s and the poignant story he punctuates with music milestones make Love is A Mix Tape a worthy read.

Like the songs on a mix tape, each chapter tells a story — a chronological tale of Sheffield’s life. Sheffield’s stories blend, not always seamlessly, into the soundtrack of how he dealt with life and the loss of his wife. Sheffield exorcises his demons with the grunge screaming of Nirvana. His words and songs bring forth the woman he loved, the things that defined him and the ways he moved on.

Sheffield wryly relates the pitfalls of his adult life, at times almost impossible to withstand. But Sheffield’s story shows that love (with kick-ass music) can break you down and pull you up, and that music surely can be the food of life.