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High On Arrival (2009)

by Mackenzie Phillips(Favorite Author)

3.63 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

143915385X (ISBN13: 9781439153857)

languge

English

genre

Memoir & Autobiography

publisher

Gallery Books

review 1: Mackenzie Phillips writes a cautionary tale as to the effect of fame and fortune (and an absentee father, and lots of drugs, and …) that some of today’s young stars would do well to read (or, in the case of the audio book version I had, listen to – narrated by the author, who actually lived it). Hang out with Daddy’s rock friends, where parties and drugs were plentiful and easy to come by. Get a small part in what turned out to be a major film. Get a couple of more films, and a successful TV series. Lose yourself in drugs. Hang out with the “wrong” guys … lose your job due to drug use, get busted … need I continue? Or should I toss in the “go out on tour with Dad’s rock band” and “sleep with the most really wrong guy you could” portions?I’... morem not telling anything in the above summary that couldn’t be obtained from a few back-issues of People magazine, and in much greater detail. That, in a nutshell, was my biggest disappointment – I’d already read virtually everything mentioned in the book by the time I actually got my copy. Well, that, and Miss Phillips is so intent on not glamorizing her life choices that I often found it hard to root for her, despite my wanting to. How can you write your memoirs and NOT be the most sympathetic character in them?? (OK, her son fills that role; there is a poetic justice in that choice.)RATING: 3 ½ stars, rounded up to 4 stars. (Giving bonus points for the decision to have the author read her own works on the audio – who better to tell the story?)
review 2: I picked this off the shelf at my local Alano club and am debating whether to put it back on the shelf there or pass it on :) This is a must-read in the annals of addiction recovery memoirs. Mack's unending emptiness about the father/daughter relationship she longed for - and the many, terrible ways she tried to literally and metaphorically fill that hole - are at the center of this book and her struggles. Some of the sections get repetitive but that's the nature of the disease - long boring stretches of doing the same thing over and over again. By the end, she seems to have it figured out but it should surprise no one if she goes back to the needle (if she hasn't already...) less

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