Tweak (Growing Up on Methamphetamines)

A memoir written in the present tense, Sheff's first book graphically if self-indulgently recounts his addictions to various drugs, including meth and heroin, and his attempts at recovery as he reaches his early 20s. His narrative begins as he relapses, not for the first time, after 18 months of sobriety, taking readers down an exhausting spiral that includes a naïve attempt at dealing drugs; burglarizing his father's house; hooking up with a vulnerable ex-girlfriend and calling 911 after she overdoses; sleeping and shooting up in his car; and going back into detox. The cycle then repeats, in all its minute details. Flashbacks recall a privileged San Francisco childhood riven by divorce, youthful promise and subsequent degradation (prostitution, stealing from his young half-siblings). Nic's absorption in himself, often expressed as self-contempt, makes much of his account read like a therapeutic exercise, especially given its repetitious nature. While it's tempting to ask if Nic's journalist father's version of the same events, in Beautiful Boy (Nonfiction Reviews, Apr. 30, 2007), supplies the insights missing here, this book's unmediated, down-and-headed-for-disaster sensibility may, for some teen readers, produce the same transfixing quality as a highway accident. Ages 15-up. (Feb.)