Grimly funny, mostly unvarnished and frequently proctological.

Funny, fascinating, compelling.

Admirably honest, sometimes cringe-inducing memoir.

Reading it is exactly as grim and as exhausting as all that sounds. For a book about a life getting high, this is a collection only of lows.

By turns fascinating and maddening, Perry’s memoir is less a tale of a glittering showbiz career than a fitfully gruesome account of his efforts to keep the show on the road.

There are so many pills contained within this book that the reader will be tempted to shake it to see if it rattles. The memoir, which Perry began writing on his notes app during the pandemic, is spiky, fast paced and relentlessly self-lacerating. Perry’s grudges are amusing and specific.

Perry is sober, self-aware, and grateful for his life. To hopefully help others, he uses his self-deprecating humor to candidly discuss Friends, lovers, and his addictions.

There are plenty of memoirs in which celebrities tell you all about the behind-the-scenes horrors they have endured, but this book is different. Perry doesn’t really blame anyone but himself. And it’s a big deal to admit to everything one has done while masking pain in the giant world arena.

Perry is a blurter, not a storyteller, and no ghostwriter or collaborator was involved in this project. Though he asserts that he does not blame his parents for his difficulties, the author sticks a major pin in the day they sent him on an airplane as an unaccompanied minor when he was 5 years old. Some will find it hard to sympathize with this story, and further mean-spirited outbursts don’t help.