The book starts out with the thrill of an early Bret Easton Ellis novel — except Khar’s characters aren’t nihilists. She provides a voyeuristic look into her mid-80s world of prep schools and famous L.A. rock clubs; into her life as the cool rich girl with her older boyfriend and Guess jeans.

... a compassionate account of [Khar's] illness and will surely be the gold standard for women writing about heroin addiction.

... deeply confessional.

Khar writes candidly.

... well-written.

Khar holds nothing back in this moving debut memoir about addiction.

[Khar] is very effective in recapturing the irrational nature of spiraling addiction and the unique misery of self-loathing during relapses after treatment. Her descriptions of her relationships, including those with her parents, and her evolution in how she handles them, create a compelling context for her feelings of isolation. The connection between childhood trauma, mental health concerns, and addiction in Khar’s story makes for a very challenging read as does her sense of tragic loss during the years lost to bad choices. Khar doesn’t sugar coat her dysfunctional periods, and this forthrightness goes a long way towards achieving her stated goal of helping to destigmatize opioid addiction. Khar acknowledges that her memoir provides but one window into the epidemic, but it does reveal the complexity of each individual case, thus giving a human face to a national crisis..