Reviews for Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey through His Son's Addiction

The average rating for Beautiful Boy: A Father's Journey through His Son's Addiction based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-02-27 00:00:00 James Saito Posted at Shelf Inflicted I never understood the appeal of meth. It's made in clandestine labs using an array of chemicals that are flammable and hazardous to your health. The drug is highly addictive and has dangerous side-effects. Your teeth fall out, your jaw collapses, you get those ghastly sores and ulcers, your cheeks become hollow, and your eyes are sunken in. And that's only on the outside. On the inside, your brain looks like Swiss cheese, you become paranoid, irritable and even violent. At one time, cocaine was my drug of choice. No fancy paraphernalia, no needles, and it's a plant derivative. The high doesn't last as long and if I want to stop, there are no physical withdrawal symptoms. Plus, it had the added benefits of keeping my weight down at its lowest, making me the life of the party, and acquiring more friends than I knew what to do with. So it has to be healthier for you, right? Who was I kidding? My job performance suffered, I became paranoid, I was hardly eating at all, and I slept only sporadically. There were nosebleeds, jitters, dry mouth, running nose, and depression. There was the scary emergency room visit for an asthma attack during a party where drugs, alcohol and cats were rampant. My neglect to mention my drug use to the doctor treating me nearly caused me to have a heart attack. One morning I woke up and decided enough is enough. My love affair with the drug was over as quickly as it started. Since that day, I never touched the stuff again. I've read stories about drug addicts, but none told from a parent's perspective. Nic Sheff, a college student in his early 20's, continues to battle his addiction. This is a beautiful and painful story told by his dad. He's not a perfect man and he's made a lot of mistakes, but there was never a doubt in my mind that he loves his son dearly. Through the ups and down of Nic's addiction, his dad's constant worries and fears ultimately affected his health until eventually he sought the help he needed and learned to create healthy boundaries. I'm looking forward to Nic's story - what made him start using, his relationship with his parents and siblings, and the effects his parents' divorce had on him. All I can say is I'm glad I don't have kids.

Review # 2 was written on 2008-04-24 00:00:00 David Tan I checked this book out of the library after hearing David Sheff and his son Nick interviewed on NPR. I found this book annoying and unrevealing (for a memoir) and yet I couldn't put it down. David Sheff discusses his own drug use and alludes to his immaturity/commitment issues as a factor in his divorce from Nick's mother which he blames mostly for his son's drug problems, but he never discusses the root of his issues (or even specifically what they were beyond immaturity) or how they affected his parenting style -- or even what his parenting style was beyond "hanging out" and having fun during his time w/ Nick (it appears he only disciplined Nick when he was caught w/ drugs). You learn nothing about David Sheff's childhood and I only found out that one of Nick's grandparents died from alcoholism from reading Tweak. Let me also add that after the divorce David Sheff regularly took Nick to adult parties and dinner parties, treating him like a "friend." (A fact also glossed over by Sheff in his memoir but revealed in Nick's memoir Tweak). So clearly there are many more layers -- like being able to set appropriate boundries as a parent -- to this story than Sheff is willing to admit to or write about. Instead he writes family scene after family scene of Nick being this golden boy as a child/teenager which becomes annoying because clearly Nick had problems beyond the divorce when he was a young child. A memoir may be an author's recollection of past events but is David Sheff really that clueless about the effects of his own behavior on his son beyond the obvious? On the plus side, you do pull for Nick to get his act together through various rehabs and relapses which kept me reading until the end, and the info./research on meth is really interesting and scary/informative, especially if you have children.