Chris Herren

The book, Basketball Junkie, is a biography written by Chris Herren himself (with the aid of sports writer Bill Reynolds). Chris Herren had a tough fight with his addiction to drugs and it resulted in him loosing his career, family, and some may say, himself. His life was run by his need to "get high". This man had everything, and he gave it all up for drugs. He says it all started with the pressure to succeed in high school basketball (he blames his father more than once for this). Drinking was just the beginning, he then went onto marijuana, then to ecstasy, cocaine, OxyCotin, Vicodin, Percocet, crystal meth, and finally Heroin. In the end, no one could save him but himself.

He is now a drug free, full-time husband and father, and a part-time public speaker. He made amends with his family and now has his wife and 3 children back. He tells his story around the country helping multiple people (kids and adults) in any way he can. His story is a unique one; not everyone can come back from drugs as well as he did. Not everyone can get forgiveness from the people they hurt as easily as he did. This book is only one person's account, but the lessons that are told can be applied to almost everyone, especially those who have battled or are battling an addiction. Overall, this book is a great warning story, the start of a plan to get clean, and a way to give people hope who thought they might have lost it.

Now, that being said, this book was not one of the best in its literary sense. Although his story is a great one to learn from, it was not written in the most appealing way. The repetitive nature of the book, and the reuse of words in such a short amount of pages was not a great way to keep your readers interested (no matter how compelling the story might be). It seemed as though every other word was winning or every other chapter was just a repeat of the last. Now, if this book was only written by Chris Herren, I would be more understanding as to why the book was written like so, but this is not the case; Chris had a partner, a sports writer in fact, (one who had written a book before), so I see no excuse for this literary nonsense to occur. While I was reading, the book came off as very bland. There was nothing that excited me or caught me off guard. It was predictable, to sum it up in one word. I understand that this is a biography, but still, some creativity in the style or word choice would have given the book some redeemable quality in the eyes of avid readers, like myself.

I would rate this book 2 out of 5 stars. It was readable, but nothing too interesting. But, of course, you can make your own decision about Basketball Junkie.