A Father's Journey Through His Son's Addiction

Beautiful Boy by David Sheff

5 stars

Ever since I saw the movie that inspired this book I had been dying to read both this book and its companion novel Tweak. I found this book at my favorite used book store and decided it was time to give it a go, even if I knew the topic that it touched upon was a hard one to swallow.

Beautiful Boy follows Nic, who before he became addicted to crystal meth, was a charming boy, joyous and funny, a varsity athlete and honor student adored by his two younger siblings. After meth, he was a trembling wraith who lied, stole, and lived on the streets. Beautiful Boy is a memoir in which we follow Nic´s fathers perspective and his journey through his sons ´addiction to drugs and tentative steps toward recovery.

Even though I loved this book, this memoir is very hard to read. It took me a long time to finally complete it because it was so painful to read about the hard reality of drugs and what they do to our love ones. This book is an excellent exploration on what it is like living with an addict, it is an exploration on grief and despair and it is heart wrenching to read what both David Sheff and Nic Sheff went through.

This is so much more than just a memoir of what it is like living with an addict son, this book is a heartbreaking testament of the love of a parent and the lengths they are willing to take to save us, even if it’s from ourselves. Memoirs and nonfiction books tend to not be my cup of tea, however, this book checked every box for me. I loved how informed and well researched this book is, I really appreciated not only learning about Sheff´s experience but also learning about addiction, specifically addiction to crystal meth.

David Sheff managed to represent perfectly the ups and downs, the hope and the despair of having an addict son. The way he writes makes you get emotionally invested in the story and he manages to appeal to everyone’s sense of compassion. The author manages to articulate his pain perfectly and it makes this book so much more compelling.

Overall, this is a raw, crude, heart wrenching memoir of what it is like to have a son who is addicted to drugs. This is not an easy book to read but it is important and necessary. Beautiful Boy will make a lot of people feel less alone and I am very happy I read it. I got emotionally invested, I learned and above all, this memoir made me think and reflect.