Review: How to Grow an Addict by J.A. Wright
*I received this book from the author for an honest review
There are some books that are painfully hard to read, not because of the difficult style and incomprehensible manner, but because the author put so much heart into his/her work that it kills you to read every single word. The dramatic novel “How to grow an addict” is exactly this kind. Being written in the first person, it is perceived as a personal diary, where Randall, the heroine of this book, shares the story of her life with us. And this story is no happy one. Reading it, you understand that all of your life troubles, which once you considered earth-shattering, aren’t worth a straw compared to what the young woman has gone through being only 23 years old. A mother addicted to pills, a father-alcoholic, an unbearable older brother… The only people who care for Randall and love her the way she is, are her uncle and aunt. Everything else is falling apart as the addiction develops its roots in Randall. A sip of alcohol after a bad day at school, a pill stolen from her mother just to get away from the nasty words her father and brother tell her, that’s how the addict is grown. I think there are two kinds of addicts’ children: those who step after their parents because of the living conditions around them, and those who loathe this way of life so much that they would rather die than live such a life. Unfortunately, Randall belongs to the first type, getting pills in exchange for sex and trying harder and harder to get wasted, to stop thinking, because it hurts so much. However, the author gives hope that the heroine may get a normal life, may overcome the demons that her parents were growing in her soul since early childhood. When I finished this book, I wanted to believe in the better life for Randall, because she deserves it.
