‘Short Skirts and Whiskey Shots: Tales of nights I shouldn’t have made it home alive’ by Andrea Janov is a collection of alternative lifestyle emo-punk poetry about living in New York and going to gigs there. Following on from her first book, ‘Mix Tapes and Photo Albums’, these eighty-eight pages, split over three sections; A fifth floor walk-up, A forfeited security deposit and A terminated lease, will take you on a gritty, day to day journey through punk-rock living in a big city.

'Short Skirts and Whiskey Shots' captures that liminal part of our lives, that time past adolescence, yet before adulthood. This collection is deeply rooted in the people and the streets of New York City. It thrives in the bars, the clubs, the tenements, the subway. It celebrates the dirty streets, the beer soaked nights, and those who sweat liquor. It explores the idiosyncrasies, the innocence, the excesses of the city.

From a tenement building in Alphabet City that had not changed much since the turn of the century to the trendy clubs and dark bars this collection explores, finds, loses, and regains itself. It claims the space and the right to be reckless, as a woman. It explores the uncertainty of being on your own for the first time, exploring the world, and getting a little lost along the way. It veers off the intended path, it course corrects, it celebrates what we learn on those detours. It does not make apologies.

It's a collection is for all of us who tried. For those who lived without heat, without doors, with too many roommates, in walk‐ups with tuberculous windows, just to have a shot. For those who made it. For those who decided on something else.