en-US Tue, 09 Jan 2018 11:00:44 -0800 60 144 41 /images/layout/goodreads_logo_144.jpg 14567199 CONTRIBUTORS: Frederick & Steven Barthelme, Kera Bolonik, Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Maud Casey, Anna David, Denise Duhamel, B.H. Fairchild, Ruth Fowler, David Huddle Perie Longo, Gregory Orr, Victoria Patterson, Molly Peacock, Scott Russell Sanders, Stephen Jay Schwartz, Linda Gray Sexton, Sue William Silverman, Chase Twichell, and Rachel Yoder
About the Editors
Diana M. Raab, an award-winning memoirist and poet, is author of six books including "Healing With Words" and "Regina's Closet." She's an advocate of the healing power of writing and teaches nation-wide workshops and in the UCLA Extension Writers' Program.
James Brown, a recovering alcoholic and addict, is the author of the memoirs, " The Los Angeles Diaries" and "This River." He is Professor of English in the MFA Program in Creative Writing at California State University, San Bernardino.
From the Reflections of America Series]]> 204 Diana Raab 1615991085 Amanda 0 to-read 4.19 2012
author: Diana Raab
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.19
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2018/01/09
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]]> 1609451
One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next, she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart. Now her life is a waiting game. Waiting for time to heal her wounds, waiting for justice. In short, waiting for a miracle to happen.

For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises. The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world. In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him. Now, he has one last chance for salvation, and it lies with June's eleven-year-old daughter, Claire. But between Shay and Claire stretches an ocean of bitter regrets, past crimes, and the rage of a mother who has lost her child.

Would you give up your vengeance against someone you hate if it meant saving someone you love? Would you want your dreams to come true if it meant granting your enemy's dying wish?

Once again, Jodi Picoult mesmerizes and enthralls readers with this story of redemption, justice, and love.]]> 448 Jodi Picoult 0743496744 Amanda 0 3.93 2008
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.93
book published: 2008
rating: 0
read at: 2016/12/10
date added: 2016/12/10
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]]> 417065 416 Jack Kerouac 067006355X Amanda 0 to-read 4.19 1957
author: Jack Kerouac
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1957
rating: 0
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date added: 2016/01/12
shelves: to-read
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]]> 19507910
It is to the Man-Rabbit’s island in a shared psychosis (Folie à Deux) where they are sent on a mission of revenge: Eliminate predators of young girls. The Man-Rabbit also demands that in order to succeed they must learn to love. Melanie and Winnie know that their love is only a game; a borrowed phantom melancholy complete with Winnie’s crocodile tears, and Melanie’s dominant affectations of her dark princess. Unable to love or feel, they are Hollow Dolls. And so the struggle begins; a journey from their child-like masquerade of love to a new world of real love.

The girls end up in the notorious Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, Canada where Melanie is searching for her birth father. Melanie needs desperately to find out what happened in her youth, but at the same time everything is catching up—the police, the demands of her mission with the Man-Rabbit, and her fracturing psyche.

Real love tempts The Hollow Dolls, mind and body. They refuse to believe anything short of absolute, and so they test love. Through the looking glass, Melanie and Winnie dance on psychic tenterhooks in a realm filled with passion. Their mission of murder and vengeance mingles with their unquenchable desire as they explore domination and submission together and with others. An ancestral aching for blood sport grows in Winnie, awakening her true self. Melanie watches her dark blood princess and the gateway to real love opens ever so slowly.

And as though one needed to delve into flesh itself to dissect and prove love, Melanie and Winnie find themselves in the Blood Sister Parlor Plains, where Love holds court and the greatest wishes of human kind are granted.]]> 332 Marilyn Talia Dahl Amanda 0 to-read 3.29 2013
author: Marilyn Talia Dahl
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.29
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2014/09/05
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]]> 18634342
The Third Sunrise takes the reader into a world that is as terrifying as it is exhilarating: it depicts the life of a young woman who, at the age of twelve, was diagnosed with early-onset Bipolar Disorder and spent many years in a psychiatric hospital where she was prescribed cocktails of medications promising recovery. Recovery never found her, and frightened, she found something else: drugs and alcohol. They quickly become exactly what she needed� a brilliant, black, detour from reality.

At the age of twenty she had devoted her life to addiction and it nearly killed her in the process. Escape wasn’t possible: she bathed in the darkness of cocaine, shook hands with heroin, and relished in the comfort of alcohol. She ceased to exist. The seizures she suffered at the hands of drugs, the abuse caused by those she invited into her life, and the pain she inflicted on herself and her family were lost to the underworld of drugs.

The Third Sunrise is a confessional, darkly humored, account of life through the eyes of a woman fighting to find it. More information is available at the book’s web site: ]]> 241 Natalie Jeanne Champagne Amanda 0 to-read 3.99 2012
author: Natalie Jeanne Champagne
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/10/07
shelves: to-read
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]]> 51504 208 Charles Bukowski 0876850867 Amanda 0 to-read 4.01 1971
author: Charles Bukowski
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 96647 New York Times bestseller by one of rock's most provocative figures Scar Tissue is Anthony Kiedis's searingly honest memoir of a life spent in the fast lane.

In 1983, four self-described "knuckleheads" burst out of the mosh-pitted mosaic of the neo-punk rock scene in L.A. with their own unique brand of cosmic hardcore mayhem funk. Over twenty years later, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, against all odds, have become one of the most successful bands in the world. Though the band has gone through many incarnations, Anthony Kiedis, the group's lyricist and dynamic lead singer, has been there for the whole roller-coaster ride. Whether he's recollecting the influence of the beautiful, strong women who have been his muses, or retracing a journey that has included appearances as diverse as a performance before half a million people at Woodstock or an audience of one at the humble compound of the exiled Dalai Lama, Kiedis shares a compelling story about the price of success and excess.

Scar Tissue is a story of dedication and debauchery, of intrigue and integrity, of recklessness and redemption--a story that could only have come out of the world of rock.]]> 465 Anthony Kiedis 1401307450 Amanda 0 to-read 4.11 2004
author: Anthony Kiedis
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.11
book published: 2004
rating: 0
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]]> 13579274
Monty Miller, a self-destructive, codependent alcoholic, is wracked by an obsession to drink himself to death as punishment for a fatal car accident he didn’t cause.

Dave Bell, a former all-American track star turned washed-up high school volleyball coach, routinely chauffeurs his bus full of teens on a belly full of liquor and head full of crack.

Angie Mallard, a recently divorced housewife with three estranged children, is willing to go to any lengths to restore the family she lost to crystal meth.

All three are court-mandated to a drug & alcohol rehab high in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.

There, they learn the universal truth among alcoholics and addicts:

Though they may all be sick
SOME ARE SICKER THAN OTHERS.

Based on the author's own personal experience with substance abuse and twelve-step programs, Some Are Sicker Than Others, transcends the clichés of the typical recovery story by exploring the insidiousness of addiction and the thin, blurred line between true love and codependence.

With the harsh realism of Brett Easton Ellis and the dark, confrontational humor of Chuck Palahniuk, Mr. Seaward takes the reader deep inside the psyche of the addict and portrays, in very explicit details, the psychological and physiological effects of withdrawal and the various stages of recovery.]]> 380 Andrew Seaward 0615624502 Amanda 0 to-read 3.69 2012
author: Andrew Seaward
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.69
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/30
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]]> 300889
Lewd, crude and hilariously rude, Kevin Smith pulls no punches in this hard-hitting, in-your-face exposé of, er, his rather dull and uneventful lifeñ€Â� well, not always dull. In between watching his TiVo, he manages to make and release Clerks II, relate the story of his partner-in-crime Jason Mewesñ€ℱ heroin addiction, get a tattoo, serve on a jury... and get caught stealing donuts from Burt Reynolds

Thrown in are his views on the perils of strip clubs, the drawback of threesomes, the pain of anal fissures, his love-affair with Star Wars and so much more! Adults Only!]]> 470 Kevin Smith 1845765389 Amanda 0 to-read 3.68 2007
author: Kevin Smith
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.68
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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]]> 15782709
A thoroughly textured and masterfully written book, layered with wildly colorful characters, a biting sense of humor, and penetrating, deeply sympathetic insights, With or Without You finally ends with Domenica's increasing awareness that she must leave the life she grew up with in order to survive.]]> 224 Domenica Ruta Amanda 0 to-read 3.62 2013
author: Domenica Ruta
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 9992246
He began working for the 14K, a notorious crime syndicate, as a nightclub doorman in the Wan Chai red-light district, where he uncovered a vast global conspiracy and the 'Foreign Triad' - a secretive expat clique in cahoots with the Chinese gangs.

Alone and confused in the neon glare of Hong Kong's seedy backstreets, Chris was forced to survive in the world's most unforgiving city, hooked on the world's most dangerous drug.

Engaging, honest and full of Chris's irrepressible humour, this remarkable memoir combines gripping storytelling with brooding menace as the Triads begin to cast their shadow over him. The result is a truly psychotic urban nightmare ...]]> 420 Chris Thrall 9881900298 Amanda 0 to-read 3.62 2011
author: Chris Thrall
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.62
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/30
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]]> 5677587 267 Sterling R. Braswell 0967851467 Amanda 0 to-read 3.53 2008
author: Sterling R. Braswell
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/30
shelves: to-read
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]]> 6167801 400 Robert Greenfield 0061715727 Amanda 0 to-read 4.07 1996
author: Robert Greenfield
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.07
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/09/30
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]]> 418
Richard Fariña evokes the Sixties as precisely, wittily, and poignantly as F. Scott Fitzgerald captured the Jazz Age. The hero, Gnossus Pappadopoulis, weaves his way through the psychedelic landscape, encountering-among other things-mescaline, women, art, gluttony, falsehood, science, prayer, and, occasionally, truth.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.]]> 352 Richard Fariña 0140189300 Amanda 0 to-read 3.81 1966
author: Richard Fariña
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1966
rating: 0
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]]> 11737014
When T-Boom introduces Laurel to meth, she immediately falls under its spell, loving the way it erases, even if only briefly, her past. But as she becomes alienated from her friends and family, she becomes a shell of her former self, and longs to be whole again. With help from an artist named Moses and her friend Kaylee, she’s able to begin to rewrite her story and start to move on from her addiction.

Incorporating Laurel’s bittersweet memories of life before and during the hurricane, this is a stunning novel by one of our finest writers. Jacqueline Woodson’s haunting—but ultimately hopeful—story is beautifully told and one readers will not
want to miss.]]> 182 Jacqueline Woodson 0399252509 Amanda 0 to-read 3.70 2012
author: Jacqueline Woodson
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.70
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 502295 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - and his singular and provocative style challenged and revolutionized writing.
Now, for the first time ever, Jann Wenner and Corey Seymour have interviewed the Good Doctor's friends, family, acquaintances and colleagues and woven their memories into a brilliant oral biography. From Hell's Angels leader Sonny Barger to Ralph Steadman to Jack Nicholson to Jimmy Buffett to Pat Buchanan to Marilyn Manson and Thompson's two wives, son, and longtime personal assistant, more than 100 members of Thompson's inner circle bring into vivid focus the life of a man who was even more complicated, tormented, and talented than any previous portrait has shown. It's all here in its uncensored glory: the creative frenzies, the love affairs, the drugs and booze and guns and explosives and, ultimately, the tragic suicide. As Thompson was fond of saying, "Buy the ticket, take the ride."]]> 467 Jann S. Wenner 0316005274 Amanda 0 to-read 4.10 2007
author: Jann S. Wenner
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 180066
David Sheff traces the first subtle warning signs: the denial, the 3 A.M. phone calls (is it Nic? The police? The hospital?), the rehabs. His preoccupation with Nic became an addiction in itself, and the obsessive worry and stress took a tremendous toll, but as a journalist, he instinctively researched every avenue of treatment that might save his son and refused to give up on him. Beautiful Boy is a fiercely candid memoir that brings immediacy to the emotional roller coaster of loving a child who seems beyond help.]]> 317 David Sheff 0618683356 Amanda 0 to-read 4.04 2007
author: David Sheff
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.04
book published: 2007
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 9473116
In his bestselling memoir Tweak , Nic Sheff took readers on an emotionally gripping roller-coaster ride through his days as an addict. In this powerful follow-up about his continued efforts to stay clean, Nic writes candidly about eye-opening stays at rehab centers, devastating relapses, and hard-won realizations about what it means to be a young person living with addiction. By candidly revealing his own failures and small personal triumphs, Nic inspires readers to maintain hope and to remember that they are not alone in their battles. A group reading guide is included.

Nic Sheff's Tweak , We All Fall Down , and his father's memoir about him ( Beautiful Boy ) are the basis of the film Beautiful Boy starring Steve Carell and Timothée Chalamet.]]> 345 Nic Sheff 0316080829 Amanda 0 to-read 3.96 2011
author: Nic Sheff
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2011
rating: 0
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]]> 297843
So begins Patrick Moore's unforgettable account of life as a crystal meth addict--a "tweaker." Like a wild ride down Alice's rabbit hole with a guide who is darkly funny and heartbreakingly honest, Tweaked chronicles a twenty-year trip that stretches from Moore's lonely childhood in Iowa with his grandmother, Zelma--an alcoholic artist who, when loaded, turns frozen food into crafts projects --to the day he sits, naked, in a Los Angeles rental, hallucinating about psycho-robbers while talking to a possum he's sure is God. Along the way, there are acid trips at the V.F.W., Dexetrim study halls with his Bad Girl Posse in the seventies, teeth-grinding nights of dancing and anonymous sex in New York City's hottest eighties clubs, taking pictures of Andy Warhol, losing friends and lovers, and navigating a Byzantine underworld of cookers, users, club kids, dealers, and colorful characters as intense as the drug itself. There is Lee, the glamorous, outré bad boy with a devastating wit and a taste for danger; Tony, the tweaker who likes to remove his eyebrows; Ding-Dong, the Depends-wearing, nearly blind housemate; Hisako, the artist and squatter with an impenetrable Japanese accent and a fondness for hot plate cooking; "Mother" Judy, the tough, butch rehab counselor who takes no prisoners, and countless others on the road from crystal meth hell to eventual sobriety.

Candid, gripping, and ultimately triumphant, Tweaked is that rarest of memoirs--a tale so vivid and personal in the telling it feels like fiction, but every word is true.]]> 215 Patrick Moore 0758212658 Amanda 0 to-read 3.38 2006
author: Patrick Moore
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 72231 184 Jeremy Robert Johnson 0976249839 Amanda 0 to-read 3.99 2005
author: Jeremy Robert Johnson
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2005
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 17364713
The feeling that sets in after a week with no sleep and not a bite to eat. When the shadows begin to dance and everything grows darker as your mind begins to work against you in clever ways.

Speed Needles is a bit more intentionally written and aims to tell more of Ashly's back story than her previous journal. She goes back and does her best to explain some of the biggest events that took place in her life, leading up to where the first book began.

While the style is somewhat different, be prepared to encounter the abrupt drop offs that were found throughout "Sex, Drugs & Being an Escort." More than anything, get ready to hear her voice from a different perspective as she paints more of the picture that is her story.]]> 48 Ashly Lorenzana Amanda 0 to-read 3.38 2013
author: Ashly Lorenzana
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.38
book published: 2013
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 9324356
The blast took off half his face, yet somehow he survived. They called Parnell the "miracle man" at the Nashville hospital where he'd been pronounced clinically dead. Following an afterlife experience where he briefly experienced hell, David woke up in the hospital, and he was changed forever, both physically and emotionally.

In Facing the Dragon , readers will witness the slow, agonizing metamorphosis of a good-looking high school athlete into a violent, drug-dealing, psychotic wife beater whose children were terrified of him. In graphic detail, they will relive his suicide attempts and then walk alongside him as he endures countless surgeries to reconstruct his decimated face and learns how to cope with his hideous disfigurement.

Now thirty-nine, Parnell is clean and sober and is making the most of the second chance he's been given, bringing his message about the dangers of meth and other drugs to schools, prisons, churches, and antidrug organizations around the world as a full-time lecturer.

By experiencing the nightmare of his life-—and his brief glimpse of hell--readers will find hope and healing when facing their own life-threatening dragons.]]> 288 David Parnell 0757315232 Amanda 0 to-read 4.13 2010
author: David Parnell
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.13
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 1292404 240 Frankie Hucklenbroich 1563410826 Amanda 0 to-read 3.72 1997
author: Frankie Hucklenbroich
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.72
book published: 1997
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 481344 ]]> 304 Lynn Breedlove 0312313632 Amanda 0 to-read 3.82 2002
author: Lynn Breedlove
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.82
book published: 2002
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 16124685 258 Jason Daniel Chaplin 0615719384 Amanda 0 to-read 4.33 2012
author: Jason Daniel Chaplin
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.33
book published: 2012
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 6759
Set in an addicts' halfway house and a tennis academy, and featuring the most endearingly screwed-up family to come along in recent fiction, Infinite Jest explores essential questions about what entertainment is and why it has come to so dominate our lives; about how our desire for entertainment affects our need to connect with other people; and about what the pleasures we choose say about who we are.

Equal parts philosophical quest and screwball comedy, Infinite Jest bends every rule of fiction without sacrificing for a moment its own entertainment value. It is an exuberant, uniquely American exploration of the passions that make us human—and one of those rare books that renew the idea of what a novel can do.]]> 1088 David Foster Wallace Amanda 0 to-read 4.26 1996
author: David Foster Wallace
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.26
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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]]> 774963
In "Lorraine Goes to Livingston," a bestselling authoress of Regency romances, paralyzed and bedridden, plans her revenge on her gambling, whoring husband with the aid of her nurse Lorraine. In "Fortune's Always Hiding," flawed beauty Samantha Worthington enlists a smitten young soccer thug to find the man who marketed the drug that crippled her from birth—in order to give his a taste of his own disastrous medicine. In the upbeat final tale "The Undefeated," we experience the transfiguring passion of the miserably married young yuppie Heather and the raver Lloyd from Leith—a grand affair played out to a house music beat.

As these fools for love pursue it in all the wrong places, Ecstasy is guaranteed to set pulses racing and hearts aflutter.]]> 290 Irvine Welsh 0393315819 Amanda 0 to-read 3.40 1996
author: Irvine Welsh
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.40
book published: 1996
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 196764
Cupcake learned to survive by turning tricks, downing hard liquor and ingesting every drug she could find while hitchhiking up and down the California coast. At just 16 she stumbled into the terrifying world of the gangsta, dealing drugs, hustling and only just surviving a drive-by shooting. Ironically, it was Cupcake's rapid descent into the nightmare of crack cocaine addiction that finally saved her. After one four-day crack binge she woke up behind a dumpster. Half-dressed and half-dead, she finally realized she had to change her life or die on the streets - another trash-can addict, another sad statistic.

Astonishingly, Cupcake turned her life around and this is her brutally frank, startlingly funny story. Unlike any memoir you will ever read, A Piece of Cake is a redemptive, gripping tale of a resilient spirit who took on the worst of contemporary urban life and survived it. It is also the most genuinely affecting rollercoaster ride through hell and back that you will ever take.]]> 472 Cupcake Brown 1400052297 Amanda 0 to-read 4.24 2006
author: Cupcake Brown
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.24
book published: 2006
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
shelves: to-read
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]]> 537066 158 Clint Catalyst 0916397653 Amanda 0 to-read 4.14 2000
author: Clint Catalyst
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.14
book published: 2000
rating: 0
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date added: 2013/08/17
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]]> 1883838 413 Nikki Sixx 1847371663 Amanda 5 4.12 2007
author: Nikki Sixx
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.12
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> 657371
This New York Times bestselling memoir of a young man’s addiction to methamphetamine tells a raw, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful tale of the road from relapse to recovery.

Nic Sheff was drunk for the first time at age eleven. In the years that followed, he would regularly smoke pot, do cocaine and Ecstasy, and develop addictions to crystal meth and heroin. Even so, he felt like he would always be able to quit and put his life together whenever he needed to. It took a violent relapse one summer in California to convince him otherwise. In a voice that is raw and honest, Nic spares no detail in telling us the compelling, heartbreaking, and true story of his relapse and the road to recovery. As we watch Nic plunge into the mental and physical depths of drug addiction, he paints a picture for us of a person at odds with his past, with his family, with his substances, and with himself. It's a harrowing portrait—but not one without hope.]]> 336 Nic Sheff 1416913629 Amanda 0 to-read 3.98 2008
author: Nic Sheff
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.98
book published: 2008
rating: 0
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]]> 7745 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is the best chronicle of drug-soaked, addle-brained, rollicking good times ever committed to the printed page. It is also the tale of a long weekend road trip that has gone down in the annals of American pop culture as one of the strangest journeys ever undertaken.]]> 204 Hunter S. Thompson 0679785892 Amanda 0 to-read 4.08 1971
author: Hunter S. Thompson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.08
book published: 1971
rating: 0
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]]> 283316
"Writing the book, I saw my old dope dealer and bought $1,500 worth of pure heroin—Brown Gold—and started shooting up 10 times a day to get the feel of the book. Well, I did, all right. I ended up in Glen Cove General, almost dead. In truth, you make a deal with the Devil. He takes away your pain, but he owns you. You live for the next fix. After a while, it's totally physical; your body has to have it. But I'm off it for good." —Linda Glovach]]> 176 Linda Glovach 006205161X Amanda 0 to-read 3.81 1998
author: Linda Glovach
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.81
book published: 1998
rating: 0
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]]> 48855
In 1942, with the Nazis occupying Holland, a thirteen-year-old Jewish girl and her family fled their home in Amsterdam and went into hiding. For the next two years, until their whereabouts were betrayed to the Gestapo, the Franks and another family lived cloistered in the “Secret Annexeâ€� of an old office building. Cut off from the outside world, they faced hunger, boredom, the constant cruelties of living in confined quarters, and the ever-present threat of discovery and death. In her diary Anne Frank recorded vivid impressions of her experiences during this period. By turns thoughtful, moving, and surprisingly humorous, her account offers a fascinating commentary on human courage and frailty and a compelling self-portrait of a sensitive and spirited young woman whose promise was tragically cut short.
--back cover]]> 283 Anne Frank Amanda 4 4.19 1947
author: Anne Frank
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.19
book published: 1947
rating: 4
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]]> 439288
In Laurie Halse Anderson's powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.]]> 202 Laurie Halse Anderson 014131088X Amanda 4 4.01 1999
author: Laurie Halse Anderson
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.01
book published: 1999
rating: 4
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]]> 10910
Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie -- seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he'd grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life. And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: when does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another?

Praised for her "personal, detail-rich style" (Glamour), Jodi Picoult infuses this page-turning novel with heart, warmth, and startling candor, taking readers on an unforgettable emotional journey.]]> 400 Jodi Picoult 0743422449 Amanda 5 3.57 1996
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.57
book published: 1996
rating: 5
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]]> 10912 New York Times bestselling author of Leaving Time, The Storyteller, and Nineteen Minutes...

To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood's hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. A frightening pattern is taking shape—a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour. Torn between fear and something that resembles love, Cassie wrestles with questions she never dreamed she would face: How can she leave? Then again, how can she stay?]]> 369 Jodi Picoult 0425185508 Amanda 3 3.53 1995
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.53
book published: 1995
rating: 3
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]]> 111180
What does it mean to be a good mother?
How far would you go in the name of love -- and justice?

In the course of her everyday work, career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters and works determinedly to ensure that a legal system with too many loopholes keeps these criminals behind bars. But when her own five-year-old son, Nathaniel, is traumatized by a sexual assault, Nina and her husband, Caleb, a quiet and methodical stone mason, are shattered, ripped apart by an enraging sense of helplessness in the face of a futile justice system that Nina knows all too well. In a heartbeat, Nina's absolute truths and convictions are turned upside down, and she hurtles toward a plan to exact her own justice for her son -- no matter the consequence, whatever the sacrifice.]]> 368 Jodi Picoult 0743418735 Amanda 4 3.96 2002
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.96
book published: 2002
rating: 4
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]]> 10909
»In atemberaubender Weise erzĂ€hlt Jodi Picoult von familiĂ€ren MissverstĂ€ndnissen, von Verrat und Vergebung. Unerschrocken und mit tiefem VerstĂ€ndnis fĂŒr ihre Figuren ein absoluter Pageturner.« -Die Washington Post]]> 387 Jodi Picoult 074349671X Amanda 3 3.53 2006
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.53
book published: 2006
rating: 3
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]]> 14864
One hundred miles away, Philadelphia defense attorney Ellie Hathaway has achieved an enviable, high-profile career. But her latest court victory has set the sands shifting beneath her. Single at thirty-nine and unsatisfied with her relationship, Ellie doesn't look back when she turns down her chance to make partner and takes off for an open-ended stay at her great-aunt's home in Paradise. Fate brings her to Katie Fisher. Suddenly, Ellie sees the chance to defend a client who truly needs her, not just one who can afford her.

But taking on this case challenges Ellie in more ways than one. She finds herself not only in a clash of wills with a client who does not want to be defended but also in a clash of cultures with a people whose channels of justice are markedly different from her own. Immersing herself in Katie Fisher's life -- and in a world founded on faith, humility, duty, and honesty -- Ellie begins to understand the pressures and sacrifices of those who to live plain. As she peels away the layers of fact and fantasy, Ellie calls on an old friend for guidance. Now, just as this man from Ellie's past reenters her life, she must uncover the truth about a complex case, a tragic loss, the bonds of love -- and her own deepest fears and desires.]]> 416 Jodi Picoult 0743275012 Amanda 3 3.99 2000
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.99
book published: 2000
rating: 3
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]]> 10916
So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet—a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described.]]> 512 Jodi Picoult 0061150142 Amanda 5 4.03 1998
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.03
book published: 1998
rating: 5
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]]> 14866
Sterling is a small, ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens -- until the day its complacency is shattered by a shocking act of violence. In the aftermath, the town's residents must not only seek justice in order to begin healing but also come to terms with the role they played in the tragedy. For them, the lines between truth and fiction, right and wrong, insider and outsider have been obscured forever. Josie Cormier, the teenage daughter of the judge sitting on the case, could be the state's best witness, but she can't remember what happened in front of her own eyes. And as the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show, destroying the closest of friendships and families.

Nineteen Minutes is New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult's most raw, honest, and important novel yet. Told with the straightforward style for which she has become known, it asks simple questions that have no easy answers: Can your own child become a mystery to you? What does it mean to be different in our society? Is it ever okay for a victim to strike back? And who -- if anyone -- has the right to judge someone else?]]> 440 Jodi Picoult 0743496728 Amanda 5 4.16 2007
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.16
book published: 2007
rating: 5
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]]> 10917 New York Times best-selling author Jodi Picoult is widely acclaimed for her keen insights into the hearts and minds of real people. Now she tells the emotionally riveting story of a family torn apart by conflicting needs and a passionate love that triumphs over human weakness.

Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13 she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate—a life and a role that she has never challenged ... until now. Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister—and so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.

My Sister's Keeper examines what it means to be a good parent, a good sister, a good person. Is it morally correct to do whatever it takes to save a child's life, even if that means infringing upon the rights of another? Is it worth trying to discover who you really are if that quest makes you like yourself less? Should you follow your own heart or let others lead you? Once again, in My Sister's Keeper, Jodi Picoult tackles a controversial real-life subject with grace, wisdom, and sensitivity.]]> 423 Jodi Picoult 0743454537 Amanda 4 4.10 2004
author: Jodi Picoult
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.10
book published: 2004
rating: 4
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]]> 9146963 Everything I Never Wanted to Be by Dina Kucera is the true story of a family's battle with alcoholism and drug addiction. In many ways, it is a cross between Mary Karr's The Liar's Club and James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Dina's grandfather and father were alcoholics. Her grandmother was a pill addict. Dina is an alcoholic and pill addict, and all three of her daughters struggle with alcohol and drug addiction, including her youngest daughter, who started using heroin at age fourteen.

Dina's household also includes her husband and his unemployed identical twin, a mother who has Parkinson's Disease, a grandson who has cerebral palsy, and various other friends and family members who drift in and out of the household depending on their employment situation and rehab status. On top of all that, Dina is trying to make it as a stand-up comic and author so she can quit her crummy job as a grocery store clerk. Through it all, Dina does her best to hold her family together, keep her faith, and maintain her sense of humor.

The story opens with Dina on stage, competing on the "Funniest Mom in America" TV show. She's performed hundreds of times, but this time she freezes because she's flashing back to her teenage daughter's harrowing hospital stay following a suicide attempt. From there, it's a rollercoaster ride that includes stories of parental neglect, drug overdoses, a priest who masturbates while hearing confessions, a tragic childbirth, a teen who finds out via videotape that she was raped while she was high on crystal meth, a stay in a mental ward, a surprisingly redemptive trip to Disneyland, and more relapses and rehabs than you can keep track of. It's a story that is brutally honest -- shocking at times -- yet still funny and full of hope.

As you might imagine, a story filled with alcoholics and drug addicts includes a number of horrific events. But in the end, Everything I Never Wanted to Be is an uplifting story that contains valuable lessons for parents and teens alike, and a strong message about the need to address the epidemic of teen drug addiction in our nation. It's a book that can change behavior and save lives and make you laugh along the way.

"Raw and funny." -- Joel Stein, Time Magazine columnist

"Like a maelstrom." -- Gary Klinga, ForeWord Review

"So absolutely over the top that it makes readers laugh out loud and thank God it is not them." -- Robin Martin, San Francisco Book Review

"Malcolm in the Middle meets Cops." -- Jenny Mounfield, The Compulsive Reader

"Open and honest." -- Charline Ratcliff, Rebecca's Reads

"You are a good writer. No doubt." James Frey to Dina Kucera]]> 216 Dina Kucera 0982579438 Amanda 0 to-read 3.73 2010
author: Dina Kucera
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.73
book published: 2010
rating: 0
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]]> 196119 384 Kevin Brooks 0439683289 Amanda 4 3.87 2005
author: Kevin Brooks
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.87
book published: 2005
rating: 4
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]]> 7442 416 Tom Wolfe 0553380648 Amanda 3 3.93 1968
author: Tom Wolfe
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1968
rating: 3
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]]> 824508 293 Melvin Burgess 0380732238 Amanda 4 3.93 1996
author: Melvin Burgess
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.93
book published: 1996
rating: 4
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]]> 662597
Now she's at Sea Pines, a "residential treatment facility" filled with girls struggling with problems of their own. Callie doesn't want to have anything to do with them. She doesn't want to have anything to do with anyone. She won't even speak.

But Callie can only stay silent for so long...]]> 151 Patricia McCormick 0439324599 Amanda 2 3.77 2000
author: Patricia McCormick
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.77
book published: 2000
rating: 2
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date added: 2013/08/12
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]]> 29488
He met Candy amid a lush Sydney summer. Gorgeous, sexy, free-spirited Candy. They fell in love fast, lots of laughter and lust, the days melting warmly into each other. He never planned to give her a habit. But she wanted a taste. And wasn't love, after all, about sharing lives? Candy had a bit of money and in the beginning, everything was beautiful. Heady, heroin-hazed days, the world open and inviting. But when the money ran out, the craving remained, and the days ceased their luxurious stretch.

But there was still love. Only now, it was a threesome. Heroin had its own demands, its own timetable, and thoughts of nabbing the next fix hurled them into each day. Then, when desperation sets in, Candy will stop at nothing to secure a blast, as she and her lover become hostage to the nightmarish world of addiction.

Painful, sexy, tender, and charged with dark humor, Candy provocatively charts the daily rituals of two lovers maintaining a long-term junk habit. Told in stunningly vivid prose and set against the backdrop of suburban and urban Australia, Candy is both an electrifying and frightening glimpse of contemporary life and love.]]> 304 Luke Davies 0345423879 Amanda 4 4.13 1997
author: Luke Davies
name: Amanda
average rating: 4.13
book published: 1997
rating: 4
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]]> 46799
Read her diary.

Enter her world.

You will never forget her.

]]> 213 Beatrice Sparks 1416914633 Amanda 3 3.75 1971
author: Beatrice Sparks
name: Amanda
average rating: 3.75
book published: 1971
rating: 3
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]]>