Love Sick: One Woman's Journey through Sexual Addiction

Rating:
Summary: Body WIth Soul
Review: Too often accounts of life published as memoir do nothing more than recount a series of events and don't get to the core of what those events mean. LOVE SICK does what all good literature does--it transforms experience into wisdom. As with Silverman's first memoir BECAUSE I REMEMBER TERROR, FATHER, I REMEMBER YOU, the author takes emotionally difficult material and makes it beautiful. Unlike the worst of television talk shows that look for the most prurient and then attempt to drag it even lower, LOVE SICK takes the reader into the experience of sexual addiction in ways that allow for empathy, understanding and redemption. And it does this with some of the most compelling prose being written today. There is also no "poor me" victim-positing, either. Silverman varies her tone of voice to match the whole spectrum of emotion, from great despair to hope. There are even moments of real humor here, as well as insights into the cultural implications of our sexually obsessed culture. All of this is rendered with a revealing and poetic eye for detail. The American Foundation for Addiction Research is campaigning to have sexual addiction recognized as a valid diagnostic label. LOVE SICK reveals why sexual addiction is a real and heartbreaking condition, and shows its effect not in any clinical way, but in a way that is most human and compelling. Don't think you need to be a sex addict to read this book. Silverman is writing about what it is to be human. LOVE SICK is both eye-opening and enlightening.