An often poignant recollection that details the demon of addictive behavior.
A retired English teacher’s debut memoir of addiction and codependence.
Romero writes that she was the daughter of an alcoholic and was raised in a dysfunctional household. She struggled with food addiction as a child and young adult, a problem that she says her perfectionist mother treated with amphetamines, resulting in a prescription-drug addiction. The author eventually achieved control over these difficulties as an adult, except in times of extreme stress; later, though, she realized that her own daughter had started using drugs. Following a divorce and years of hectic single parenthood, she attributed her daughter’s nonconformity to her artistic nature and readjustment problems related to her parents’ divorce. But after years of supporting her daughter through rehab, relapse, unwanted pregnancies, and abuse-related health problems, Romero recognized that she was enabling her daughter while neglecting her other two children. She further understood that her own feelings of guilt contributed to her codependence, and so she sought to distance herself. The “Recovery” in the subtitle refers to Romero’s own, and she proves a point by showing that her own recovery is as complete as it will ever be—essentially because she forced her daughter to be accountable for herself. After engaging with her daughter’s story, readers will naturally be curious about whether she stayed sober, as well. Romero’s generally well-written, sympathetic story will be relatable to those who have dealt with addiction, and those with less personal experience may gain a greater understanding of it. Romero’s and her daughter’s stories are truly heart-wrenching, as the former watches her talented, creative offspring descend into a world of prostitution and addiction. The narrative is occasionally repetitive, as in the continual references to Romero’s father’s alcoholism. The author also sometimes mentions past events but doesn’t explain them in detail (“Her face was still healing from the burns she had gotten freebasing crack cocaine back in October”). Where she really excels is in detailing her own feelings of culpability: “My guilt gave her illness power over me. It kept me enabling her, pandering to her needs, protecting her from the consequences of her choices.”
An often poignant recollection that details the demon of addictive behavior.Pub Date: July 18, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-940769-14-1
Page Count: 362
Publisher: Mercury HeartLink
Review Posted Online: June 16, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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