A review by bookishaddictions
Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry

dark emotional funny informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.5

I’m not a huge memoir person, but I decided to give Perry’s a go since I loved how he portrayed Chandler; I became intrigued when I heard that he was practically playing himself. His story is heartbreaking, and it truly shows the complexity of addiction and maintaining sobriety. While I thankfully have never fallen down that rabbit hole myself, I have known enough addicts to have seen a life like Perry’s play out (minus the resources that come with Hollywood money). I was intrigued by his traumas and I had moments where I felt I could relate to some of his self-deprecating thoughts during my darkest moments, however, this eventually got to be a bit repetitive. While the memoir is the story of Perry’s life, a solid 85% is actually about his addiction. I get addiction essentially becomes a persons life, but it could get tedious at times to repeatedly read how he felt that he wasn’t good enough or how much Vicodin he was taking. I wish I could have learned more about his relationships with people, his interests outside of acting and tennis, etc… Like in his daily life, he seems to have allowed his addiction to become his story. While I still hold great respect for Perry as an actor and writer, I found his memoir to be fairly average. I would recommend checking his book out if you are curious about how the mind of an addict works, but it will only help so much if you hope to get to know Perry as a person.
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