Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing by Matthew Perry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is book mostly about addiction, insecurity, fame and Matthew Perry. It’s less about lovers and even less about Friends, TV show. On many of reviews poor editing is mentioned. Not sure if some of the reason for critic has been fixed on up to date edition or is my English just so poor that I just don’t notice any of that.
I wonder how much easier Matty’s life would have been without all the money and fame. I assume it’s easier to relapse time after the time when you have endless amount of money to spend on rehabs, medication and health care. What ever it is it seems for an outsider, that too much of everything has pretty much ruined Matty’s life, health and relationships.
But he seems to be some what ok now. He is still relatively young and he hasn’t been able to toss out all of his money. I didn’t get feeling he has succeeded in his life though. He has been in number 1 TV Show and number 1 movie same time and earned insane amount of money. Some how any of that does’t seem to make him feel he has succeeded on anything. His life is constant battle against his demons and health issues.
I’m not sure if there’s anything to learn from this book. Except addiction is terrible disease and having too much money certainly does not make it any easier. When you have so much money that you cannot spent any significant amount of it to drugs, pills and alcohol and you can afford to spend $7 million to rehabs alone money obviously does not solve anything.
I didn’t borrow this book to read about Friends, but about Matty’s addiction. It was somewhat entertaining (the way real life Chandler, Matty himself, puts it) and somewhat shocking. I hope Matty gets his shit together and can live happier life now.
