A Review of 'Recovery Road' by Blake Nelson

"Madeline is sent away to Spring Meadows rehab for drinking and rage.  At the weekly movie night in town, she meets Stewart, from another rehab nearby.  They fall for each other despite the crazy time.  Madeline gets out and starts to regain her feet.  But when Stewart joins her, both still are severely troubled, and he is getting worse."

This is another book that has been hanging out on my TBR list at my local library for a long time and something in the universe aligned that made me actually interested in starting and finishing this book.  It took one or two tries, I remember.

This is a pretty easy read, I feel.  I'd describe my experience as being a tourist passing through this book.  I didn't feel entirely connected to the characters in this story, but I was interested in what they were going through and what was happening to them, oddly.  So I was able to read this without feeling committed or attached to anyone.  The characters were either fairly flat or just too annoying to care about.  Normally this is something I really value in a book, and I still value this, but when you just want something a little lighter to read, I guess it doesn't really matter.  That's how I feel about it anyway.

While this book shouldn't be considered the Bible on the recovery process of drug addiction and chemical dependency, I do think that it is a good initial look at generally what people go through in their struggle to get clean.  There are characters who very obviously need help, but no amount of examples and persuading them to stop their reckless lifestyle choices convince them because they're not convinced they need to change.  Once someone does decide that they need to change, success is more likely, but there will always be those times when struggle is unavoidable.  And it's normal.  But you pick yourself up and keep going.  You try again.  For some people, leading a successful life after spending so much time getting high or buzzed or whatever is possible with work.

Overal, this was an okay read.  I'm happy that I read it, but I won't go out of my way to purchase this book at this point in time.

I give 'Recovery Road':

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude