cover image iWant: My Journey from Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life

iWant: My Journey from Addiction and Overconsumption to a Simpler, Honest Life

Jane Velez-Mitchell. Health Communications, $24.95 (268pp) ISBN 978-0-7573-1371-4

Host of her own Headline News show, journalist Velez-Mitchell addresses a number of her own issues in this honest but ultimately unremarkable narrative, focusing largely on former addictions to alcohol, cigarettes, food and money: ""I've consumed all of those in massive quantities, and they've just made me miserable. Now, I want... the opposite of material. As sappy as it might sound, what I want is spiritual."" Velez-Mitchell then recounts a childhood with parents who taught her to shun all authority but their own; a young adulthood in which she nearly drank herself into oblivion; her decision to get sober; how she came to terms with her homosexuality; and her climb to success in the world of television news. Despite these revelations, though, Velez-Mitchell's off-putting, self-righteous tone may make readers feel they're being scolded, rather than invited to understand or sympathize.