Review: COMPELLING READ
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 02 6, 2013
Meet the AuthorStephen Bradlee is a pen name for a Hollywood film executive. He has ghostwritten celebrity autobiographies and has worked primarily as a script doctor. He is married and lives with his wife, their daughter and their dog.BLURB:  Sherry Johnson is a young, beautiful, bright and athletic girl.  She has everything going for her, except one thing.She is addicted to love.  Her life is a vicious circle of nightly trysts and morning regrets.  Her addiction got her kicked out of college, cost her the love of her life and has left her in complete despair.But still Sherry keeps falling in love. And falling.  And falling.Finally, as Sherry struggles to pull herself up from a bottomless abyss. she realizes that she will have to learn to love the one person she has loathed for most of  her life.  Herself.Based on the True Story of a Young Woman's Battle with Sexual Addiction.EXCERPT:"I have a great story for you."This is a sucker line for every writer.  Almost everyone thinks that their life would make a great story but few of us live lives that are the stuff of great drama, and even less have material or its counterpart, great comedy.  Still writers listen, at least for a few lines, because we are always looking for a great story.The caller was Candice an old friend who's own life story actually was worth telling.  A century ago, her family was among America's richest but alcoholism had wracked every generation, dissipating the wealth until now it was nearly gone.  I had known her through years of pristine sobriety ad years of hard drinking and nothing in between. Now, here she was, sober and saying she had a great story."What is it?" I asked curtly.  I was on a deadline and didn't have time to chat.  I knew she would never tell her own story and who knew if she could spot great material any better than the rest of us."She'll be in New York this weekend," Candice shot back. "She wants to talk to a writer.  Confidentially.  When can you meet her?"I hadn't yet said that I would meet her.  I snapped, "Two o'clock, Friday,  Figaro's"  Figaro's was a Greenwich Village cafe.  I was already afraid that this rendezvous would turn out to be a waste of time but I had a three o'clock meeting two blocks away.  At that  hour, Figaro's would be fairly deserted and I had a side table that I sometimes used as an office cum cappuccino."Fine," Candice replied."What's her name?""She'll find you.  She's seen your picture.""Why me?"  Candice knew other writers."Just be there, I'm late for a meeting.""Is she some kind of whistle blower?" I asked but Candice had already hung up.I had three days to mull over the meeting, deciding whether or not to cancel it.  But in the end, I knew I'd show up.  I was a writer, a sucker.  Maybe this time.At two fifteen, I was sipping a cappuccino and scribbling notes on a manuscript when she walked in.  She looked in her early thirties, with auburn hair, aquamarine eyes, and was breathtakingly beautiful.  She looked so perfect that it seemed hard to imagine that  her life wasn't also perfect but that gave me hope.  Nobody was.She walked up to me like an old friend,  "Hi, Stephen.""Hi," I said,. rising.  We shook hands.  She didn't offer her name.She sat down and ordered herbal tea as we made small talk about her trip to New York.  She was even more beautiful close up but her eyes gave her away.  Although large and soft, the revealed that they had probably seen a lot more life than thirty years worth.  She asked me several questions about myself.  I answered them all.  She answered none of mine except her name. " Sherry."  Her story might be great but she didn't seem ready to tell it.OVERVIEW:Once I started reading this book, I couldn't put it down. The plot starts a little slow.  The author tells you of the webbed life of Sherry.  You soon are entered into the life of sex addiction. It's hard not to feel sorry for Sherry and her sex addiction.  It's a crazy, mixed up, sad life. Sherry never had a childhood.  When she was just a baby her mother left her and her father was dead.  She yearned so despreately for  love.  She had no one who loved her. She took to the life of looking for love, night after night.  "Looking for love in all t he wrong places."  You never have to go back and re-read.  The author keeps you right on track every page of Sherry's life.  People sometimes laugh at the thought of "Sex addiction."  It's real and this story is a true story of a beautiful, lonely person looking for love and instead she is living a life of addiction to sex.  You will not want to quit reading until you're finished.  Sherry's addictions are not vividly described but it doesn't take much to figure out what's going on between the lines.  In any kind of addiction, a person starts to self destruct after a while.  Addiction destroys your whole life and the lives of others.  Addiction takes away a person's self worth.  You hate yourself and you can't think positive about anything.  Your life starts to go out of control gradually and then goes faster and faster, because the addiction becomes more and more a part of your life.Will Sherry begin to climb out of the hole she's in?  Will she be able to fight the addiction and overocme it, or will she continue on the same path?I give this book 5 stars and would recommend that everyone read it.  It is an eye opener and it will educate you, if you don't already know about addiction.Go out and get the book and read it.  It's well worth it.I received this complimentary book, FALLING IN LOVE, by Stephen Bradlee,for my unbiased review.[...][...][...][...]