Today I am featuring Stephen Bradlee and his book Falling in Love. This is an intimate portrait of a woman’s addiction and fight to have a normal life. Be sure to check out my review after the book blurb.
Book Blurb: (Courtesy of www.fallinginlovethebook.com)
Sherry Johnson is young, beautiful, bright and athletic. She has everything going for her, except for 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 pit, 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 Sex Addiction
Review:
Falling in Love is a story about just what the title tells you with a few exceptions. Sherry falls in love a lot. She also hates herself most of the time afterward. Her self-esteem is in the bottom of the barrel and uses sex as a filler for the intimate connects she thinks will validate her as a person. This is one of the reasons why her relationships continually fail. While in love with one man she goes out and gets drunk and sleeps with another or many other men. Her compulsion is self-destructive in all aspects of her life. From her inter personal relationships to her professional to her familial relationships they all become tainted and/or destroyed from her continual self-destructive behavior. She decides to run away to New York City to find her mother’s best friend in the hopes that she will help her locate her mother. In the process she becomes part of a sex addicts support group. We follow Sherry through her trials of trying to stay sober and also sober in an abstinent way. Like many others who go into recovery there are slips and trips that push Sherry teetering on the edge of survival. In the end, Sherry shows how even when you’re struggling if you take things one day at a time you can slowly learn to love yourself and in turn share yourself with those around you.
Stephen Bradlee does a phenomenal job with this book. Having not been in situations like Sherry I was worried I wouldn’t be able to relate to her struggle. This is not a problem in any way. From the beginning of Sherry’s story you are thrown into her life like it was your own. You feel her pain, torment, struggle and love. Her pain really cuts into the reader and its very cringe worthy. You will cry when she finally tells her story to those that became important to her and you will fight with her every time she has a challenge. I have learned from this book that any addiction is a day-to-day struggle whether it is sex or alcohol or drugs. I admire Sherry’s story and I hope that anyone who is struggling with an addiction will find the hope that is the underlying success in this story. I highly recommend this for anyone looking for a good read where your constantly fighting for and cheering for the character.
Author Bio: (Courtesy of www.fallinginlovethebook.com)
Stephen Bradlee is the 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.