I'm giving this book five stars because it rocks, I couldn't put it down, and it answered so many questions that I've had since the early '60s until present day. I found this book to be fabulous, though it does have some faults. Sonic Boom is extensively researched and presented in an easy-to-read, engaging style that hooked me from the beginning.Sonic Boom is written very well, and it has some fantastic passages that are meaningful to people who grew up in the Puget Sound. Two of the criticisms that I've read about Sonic Boom deal with it's lack of coverage outside the Puget Sound, and it's intense coverage of the late '50's and all of the '60s. This is a fair criticism, as Portland, and Oregon in general, gets slighted. After reading this book, one could easily ascertain that Portland had two bands in the early '60s, the Kingsmen and Paul Revere and the Raiders. Obviously, this wasn't true. The era criticism has less validity, though certainly some merit. While Blecha didn't spend a fair share of time on the 80s-2000, it's also true that for the most part, that period isn't all that interesting, and it has been covered extensively, exhaustively, in main stream press rags since 1988. Also, the metal scene in Seattle, Queensrcyhe included, is a big so what. I'm okay with the way Blecha covered the various eras. I think he hit the important eras well, and while he could have given us more about Nirvana and Pearl Jam, I'm okay that he didn't.Pat O'Day was a legend beyond belief when I was a teenager growing up in the Puget Sound. Lou Guzzo was also a well known journalist and patriarch during these times. I used to want to be Pat O'Day. He was a childhood hero, so I had difficulty accepting the negative role Blecha painted of him. However, after reading about O'Day's methods, I can see that while he was great on the radio, he is probably more responsible for restraining the growth of Northwest rock and roll than he was for promoting it. In fact, it would be fair to say that O'Day did only what he needed to do to put a buck in his pocket. A problem that is as American as apple pie. Lou Guzzo! I used to wonder why I didn't like that guy. Now I have a better understanding.I guess if I could have had some input into the writing of Sonic Boom, I would have asked for more extensive interviews from actual musicians. Hearing it from members of The Wailers, The Sonics, Merrilee Rush, etc would have been great. Also, Chris Novaselic lives here! I had to wonder why we didn't get any input from him. It seems that since Nirvana is the second biggest thing to ever come out of the Seattle area, with Hendrix being the first, we could have had some local input into the dialogue. Perhaps there is a reason why that didn't happen. Nonetheless, I still love this book. And I think it is important to remember that the book, as written, is of a reasonable length, 304 pages, and to have filled it with too much information would have altered its readability.Buy this book. It is well worth the current price being asked, and it is full of Northwest music history. I'm going to buy it for friends and relatives for birthday presents. They need to know, so do you.