Clearly, I am jaded

Just finished reading Normal Girl, by Molly Jong-Fast. I was "meh" about it.

Given my rehab experience- I get the disjointed nature of an addicts mind and the lost time that accompanies it(heck, I do not remember pretty much any of high school and I was not addicted to or using any drugs, I just was a normal eating disordered girl), but her story had a plot line that was slow to evolve.

Moreover. I do not know many addicts- especially as severe as Miranda- the protagonist who sail so well through rehab- there are stops and starts, and backslides, and full on relapses. Miranda just seems to tie up her loose ends in a bow and say: "All better now" and that is not realistic.

The part that got me most was that it was if Jong-Fast was trying to hard. She was trying to make things come across as an addict would see them. Not authentic, not genuine. As she is a recovering addict, she could have drawn from experience instead of making her work feel false and forced.

I am much more a fan of Marya Hornbacher's Wasted. Her account is searing and genuine.