Bookami

Tweak: Growing Up on Methamphetamines by Nic Sheff

Synopsis: Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven, and since then his life has been one drug and one rehab center after another.

Review: Tweak is an authentic, to use Nic's own word, memoir about his life on pot, meth, crack and heroin. It's not an easy book to read.  Much like Nic's highs and lows, it sometimes spirals out of control.  It's hard to keep the cast of characters straight, but I can also appreciate how this makes the reader understand better what it is to be addicted to drugs.  Even when Nic is shooting himself up, he's often telling himself that he doesn't want to do drugs anymore.  His thought process is completely rational.  That kind of blew my mind.  I would think the cravings would block all coherent thought from an addict's head, but Nic knows that drugs make his life disgustingly pathetic and lonely.  Still, he does them.  Even after he gets clean for 18 months, he still goes back to them.  He learned from a woman in Sober Living that "addiction is a disease of amnesia."  I think that's a pretty cool and accurate statement.  It also made me think of childbirth.  You truly do forget the pain of labor so it's completely understandable to me that you might forget all the bad crap that happens while you're on drugs and detoxing afterward.  Yes, Nic's life on drugs sucks, but having to live with himself sober is also pretty daunting and disheartening.  He has to remember how much he hurt his family and friends and himself.  That's a major guilt trip to face every day.  At the end of the book, Nic is again on the path to clean living, and I certainly hope he stays there. 

I also hope that Tweak isn't overshadowed by Nic's father's book, Beautiful Boy, which also details Nic's addiction.  I can already see that David Sheff's book is getting more media attention.  It's even the Starbucks' book right now.  Having said this and even though it's not a children's book, I will likely review it next for the site.  It will certainly be interesting to read a different perspective on Nic's story, and hopefully by reviewing both books, more people will be encouraged to read both accounts.

If you appreciated this memoir, you might also enjoy The Burn Journals by Brent Runyon.

Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter

Synopsis: Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years in fourteen different foster homes. Some homes were good, some were bad, one was awful, but somehow Ashley managed to survive and eventually be adopted by a loving family, who gave her the support she needed to become an advocate for foster care reform.

Review: I don't really know that you can review the story of someone's life.  After all, who am I to question how Rhodes-Courter voices her heartbreaking, but uplifting story?  What I can say is that anyone who cares about children should read this memoir.  I have two children of my own, and even after staying up until four in the morning reading this book, I found that I wanted to have a little extra patience with them today and every day.  I certainly can't understand how someone could physically hurt a child the way the Mosses hurt Ashley and the other children in their care, but this book reminds the reader that sometimes being apathetic or thoughtless can cause just as much damage as a physical slap.  Apathy was the crime of most of the people who were supposed to care for Ashley.  Most of them weren't really bad people, but they didn't do the job they were supposed to do.  Ashley appropriately quotes Moliere: "It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."  While it is certainly unspeakable that such a young woman has to educate so many adults about this life lesson, it is also remarkable that Ashley's story ends happily enough that she has the fortitude to be just such an educator.