I love Matthew Perry. I loved this book. I almost *really* loved this book (see my thoughts below in the next section. They don’t contain spoilers).
It takes a lot of guts to open yourself up to a world that knows you, loves, you, and fully sees you as the hilarious Chandler Bing who can make you laugh until you cry simply by changing the emphasis of a random word in an otherwise insignificant rhetorical question. He shares (and over shares) about his tumultuous upbringing, tumultuous rise to fame, tumultuous love life, tumultuous struggle with alcohol and prescription drugs…are we sensing a pattern here? He begins telling his life story about the unstable family life into which he was born and continues by describing his childhood where he never quite felt like he belonged in his mom’s life or his dad’s life. He catalogs his ascension to fame which was riddled with lots of opiates, lots of alcohol, lots of cigarettes, lots of women, lots of famous people, and lots and lots and lots of rehab. His story is as difficult as a breakup with Janice (if you know, you know), but it’s his story to tell, and he does not hold back. (READ ON BELOW…I don’t give spoilers here)
Trigger warnings: Language, drug use, sexual content, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts
