Rating: 
Summary: Good book - but a very biased truth
Review: If you're a manic depressive or a parent of a manic depressive - don't read this book for advice. You might relate, but it won't help you. The fact is that being a manic depressive makes you VERY susceptible to any kind of addiction. Did Nick commit suicide? Maybe - or he just died of an overdose without meaning to. I'm a manic depressive, and can relate to what he was going through. I do however disagree with what his mother thinks the causes of his problems were. My medical symptoms are remarkably similar to Nick's, yet my upbringing was a lot different. The second of five children, there were very few times when my parents could make ends meet. My father was a boilermaker, but due to an accident at a site he was working on, he became disabled. This left a lot of responsibility not only on my oldest sister's shoulders, but on mine as well when she left to go to boarding school. My mom always insisted that there was nothing wrong with me, with the school noticing my lack of impulse control etc. instead and sending me to the school shrinks. Her denial that I had problems even went so far, that when my eyesight became too bad to see on the blackboard, my teacher took matters into his own hands and took me to an optometrist one day after school. Without an overprotective mother, I had to find ways to cope on my own. (The various shrinks did help - I took a mixture of their advice and found out the best ways for me to cope) My mom was also working so hard that the responsibility for my younger brother and sisters mostly fell on me. Responsibility is one of the biggest reasons why I'm alive today. After high school, I went to study nursing - my responsibility load dropped dramatically. I essentially lost my reason for living - and tried to commit suicide twice. Many people think that depressives try to commit suicide to get attention - only my best friend ever knew of my attempts and always only afterwards. I never wrote suicide notes and I never told anyone that I was going to commit suicide. Each time I survived, was because my body `ignores' many drugs and I was able to sleep off the residual effects. I dropped out of college soon after - not being able to handle the workload and the people. Then I met my ex-husband and became pregnant. Now I had another reason to live - my child. Even with all the ups and downs - being hospitalised and changing medications, I've never tried to commit suicide since. Even with the emotional down of my divorce. What do I think went wrong with Nick?
- His mother was over-protective. He never needed to develop alternative ways of coping with his illness. He might be alive today if he had.
- Leaving Link 80, made him leave his biggest responsibility behind. No responsibility gave him no reason to keep on living.
- He had a drug addiction that his mother never truly admitted to. In the book she makes it sound like he experimented with drugs occasionally. If his true situation corresponds to mine the way his does to me, his knowledge of pharmaceuticals would have rivalled that of a pharmacist. He might not have been physically addicted to one specific substance, but he was mentally addicted. I know I still am....
Rating: 
Summary: Nick Traina - A Star in His Own Right...
Review: This book was powerful. I mean truly wonderfully powerful. I have always loved Danielle Steele books but this one was different and odd and REAL. The fact that THIS book was about a real person, her son no less, made it all the more intriguing and I could NOT put it down. I read it in less than 4 hours - the entire book. I loved it, every page. It makes you realize that there are so many people who are loved every day and still struggle with who and where they fit in. I believe this is definitely one of Ms. Steele's best books yet.
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