The author has a great talent for writing. I was impressed at the vividness of the writing and the ability he had of adding humor to the horrible. That being said, there was much too much of the horrible for my liking. Death, betrayal, incest, addiction, self annihilation, and no hope for progress...argh! There is quite enough of this in real life (just read the news). I'd rather avoid dealing with these grim topics in a work of art, unless there is some transcendence of the horror. One could argue that this criteria is met in the end but I don't think so...read the book and find out, unless you can't afford to be depressed for a few days.