A glimpse into famous life, not always what we think!
Matthew Perry is a famous actor, widely known for his role on the sitcom “Friends” as well as some other shows and films. In his memoir, he explains the challenges he has faced in his life and all that he’s gone through. He was one of the first few famous Hollywood actors that was openly battling addiction, which is what a majority of the book is about. This book explores many heavy topics, and can be hard or frustrating to read at times, but it’s a very eye opening and interesting story to read. As a huge fan of the show “Friends”, it is heartbreaking and bittersweet to read about all that Matthew Perry went through during his life.
Perry starts out by talking about his childhood. He lived with his mom in Canada for most of his childhood, and his dad was an actor that left his family for Hollywood. Perry doesn’t blame his father or mother for his issues, but he does acknowledge that the amount of time he spent alone as a child probably contributed to some of his problems as an adult. After covering his childhood, he moves on to how he got into acting and what his first gigs were like. As he continues to explain his timeline, he also begins introducing what it felt like to fall into the trap of addiction. He explains that he didn’t know what was going on, and he didn’t understand what was wrong with him, so it took him a very long time to ask for help. In addition to focusing on his addiction,
As you keep reading, Perry shows copious amounts of gratitude to all the people who knew about and helped him with his addiction, including the first person who got him to rehab, his family for showing up when he was in the hospital, and the cast of “Friends” that cared for him no matter what. When I first read this book, I did not know much about addiction, but after reading it I felt like I had learned so much just from hearing about Perry’s experience. He capitalized on the fact that it is a disease that some people have in their genes and some don’t. His father drank but one day he just stopped and he was ok, but when Perry tried to stop he had horrible withdrawal symptoms, was in pain, had to go to countless different rehabs to sort it out.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this book because it gave me a glimpse into the life of an actor that I really enjoy watching, but it also educated me about a disease that is mostly taboo in our society. I would give this book an 8/10. It was a great book to read, but it was a little heavy. I think that this book is best suited for people 18 years old and up because of all the topics that it covers. I would definitely recommend it to other people, however it’s not for everyone because you have to have a pretty open mind to read a book written all about someone’s experience with addiction and not judge them as a person just based on that.
