Damaged Goods

A Memoir

By: Shelley Louise

Narrated by: Jeanne Scurek

This is a deeply personal story of a young woman’s journey through addiction; the loss of her child’s father through an overdose, her mother’s suicide, and the tragic consequences that those lifestyle choices bring.

At 15, Shelley was submerged into the seedy world of the red-light district of Honolulu. As the warm-up act for the strippers, she became a topless dancer only to discover she was not emotionally prepared for the lewd attention. Pills and heroin helped her to cope with a lifestyle that was beyond her years.

Heartbreaking at times, this memoir follows Shelley as she makes her way into the rooms of recovery and the pitfalls and successes that await. Powerful, moving, and inspirational.

©2018 Shelley O'Sullivan (P)2021 Shelley O'Sullivan

Saved by NA

This story was decent and interesting enough to keep following but it's harder to get into a story about a normal person as opposed to a celebrity or someone remarkable. Still, her story was engaging enough to keep listening to but once she describes being saved by anonymous programs I instantly turned off. As a recovering addict myself I know that accomplishing sobriety is no easy task but I feel when someone relies too heavily on anonymous programs that that takes away from the sense of achievement. Just my opinion of course but I think sometimes depending on anonymous programs can be an addiction in itself. So i became bored when she started repeating the NA/AA mantras and buzz words like "we came to believe" and "character defects", etc. If you don't mind this, you might enjoy this book but if you don't like the tedium of NA/AA you might be disappointed when the author describes her involvement with these programs to get sober.

The best memoir I’ve read in many years.

This author takes us through her fascinating and gritty descent into addiction and her journey back. I appreciated the fact that she didn’t hide from the fact that recovery doesn’t fix everything in your life and she still dealt with a lot of things after that. This is an extremely honest and inspiring story, and I highly recommend it!

The narration was tough to listen to. The story was interesting but I had to stop listening mid way through.

The narrators sounded very robotic, making this impossible to finish. The story itself was great.

First Audio book was a win.

My husband often listens to Audio books on his audible account. I have always been a physical book person. I learned about this story and decided to give it a shot. I was blown away. It was so easy to listen to! A lot of my reason for disliking audio books is sometimes painful and slogging narration. This was TOTALLY different. The book is an autobiography about very disturbing though relatable troubles. The narration treats these subjects with tenderness while adding a strength to the voice of the character. I would totally recommend this audio book.

Extreme

The author gives an amazing story and shows such resilience. I enjoyed the book BUT I thought some words were not necessary, ie. Chocolate thunder and the over use of Brother. Appears to try stressing the fact she was with a black man. Why the derogatory words . Love is Love.