No comments about Reducing the Risks for Substance Abuse: A Lifespan Approach (Prevention in Practice Library).

5 comments about The After Life.

1. Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down. It's one of the best novels I've read in quite a while. The characters are engaging, the themes are provocative, and the plot moves forward at an enjoyable clip. I very highly recommend this one, for adults of all ages.



2. You should buy this book for the first chapter alone. It is without a doubt the best opening scene for a novel I've read in quite some time. What Daniel Ehrenhaft pulls off in those pages is a masterfully funny and surprisingly moving episode that sheds light on the screwed up but sympathetic life of his main character, Will Shepherd. All of the characters in the book are well-crafted and the space that they inhabit is at once familiar, yet unique. I couldn't put the book down since I so enjoyed the dialogue, the dilemmas and the insanity of the relationships. It's a compulsively readable and hilarious book that is totally worth a read.



3. I read this book in two sittings. It's a novel both of fascinating characters and of true suspense - who are these three people, this pair of twins and their half-brother? What's going to happen to their father's big fortune? I couldn't wait to find out.
   And although the subjects are weighty (death, addiction, family, love, crazy mothers, crazy fathers), the writing is hilarious.
   
   It does have "mature themes" -- drinking, talk of drugs, lots of sexual tension -- in case you're thinking of buying it for your eight-year-old niece who is a very precocious reader.



4. I've often heard that books can be made or destroyed in the editing. In my opinion, "The After Life" is one of those books. There is a talented writer at work here--I just felt the book's structure made it drag. For that I have to look to an editor asleep at the wheel.
   
   Will has never met his father. Through a bizarre chain of events, and through his wealthy father's influence, Will finds himself enrolled in the same prep school attended by the twin half-siblings he's never seen--Liz and Kyle.
   
   When Kyle's father dies from a overdose the night after meeting Will for the first time, the three teens are summoned to Florida for their father's funeral and will reading. A bizarre condition of Will's (surprise) two-million dollar inheritance is that Will drive his father's Volvo back to NYC within two days in order to collect his money.
   
   Since Will has no driver's license (and honestly, is always too stoned to drive anyway), his manipulative half-brother offers to drive the three of them to NYC so that he can make sure that Will doesn't make off with more than two million dollars.
   
   The fact that this title packs such an unforgettable, hilarious and unique first chapter, and promises an unforgettable road trip on its back cover copy may not have done the story this author really wanted to tell any favors.
   
   The combined expectation of a structure that failed to live up to the explosive first pages and the promise of a ROAD TRIP!!!! made the pages between the end of chapter 1, and the middle of the book (when the road trip became inevitable)feel like an information dump.
   
   This is a a title that could have used some careful structural editing. This is a story that should have been brilliant. Sadly, by page fifty I was begging the main characters to sober up, do something to make them feel redeemable, and get on with the road trip promised on the back cover.
   
   "The After Life" is truly worth a read, and is worth the cover price for the first chapter alone. Just don't expect an action story and avoid giving it to any child under the age of seventeen.
   
   Had this title come billed as twenty-something literary fiction, I'd have afforded it one more star. My thirteen-year old daughter found it located in the YA section of my book store--another publisher error in judgement that I feel harmed this book's marketing potential, and cost it what would have been a near-four-star rating.
   
   Fortunately, I read it first.



5. I wish I had the guts to write an essay to get into college like Will's. The book was a page turner with gripping characters and an engaging plot. I am begging the author for a sequel.

No comments about Once a Pickle.

No comments about Alcoholics Anonymous 4th Edition.

No comments about Niacin Can Curb Craving for Alcohol.

3 comments about Adolescents, Alcohol and Substance Abuse: Reaching Teens through Brief Interventions.

1. This book offers a review of current research on substance use in adolescents and college age students, but I was looking for more practical guidance on doing therapy with kids who use drugs, and this was only covered slightly. I was hoping that this would be the main focus of the book, considering the subtitle "reaching teens through brief interventions". It was kind of a let down.



2. In difference to the other review I read on this site this book is quite informative. I would be concerned with any text that would attempt to simply spell out how to conduct a broad category of treatments, such as "brief intervention." Instead, this edited book includes work from some of the foremost authorities in the field and even has a few chapters that detail some specific intervention plans that were a burgeoning of therapy modes. Most importantly, the authors dare to present novel yet controversial approaches to framing adolescent substance use and treatment. If "how to" is what you are looking for, you should properly contact the authors of the various chapters as they are mostly associated with training programs and seminars.



3. This is the best available at this time for working with adolescents who are abusing substances. The only flaw in the text is the chapter on internet treatment. The websites are not always good or appropriate for teens. Otherwise, the text is excellent and with this corrected I would give it 5 stars.

No comments about Neuro-Linguistic Programming in Alcoholism Treatment (Haworth Series in Addictions Treatment, Vol 3) (Haworth Series in Addictions Treatment, Vol 3).

No comments about Good Intentions, Bad Results - Teachers Guide: Intervention with Youth in Trouble with Alcohol/Drugs.

No comments about Neurologic Consequences of Malnutrition (World Federation of Neurology Seminars in Clinical Neurology).

No comments about The Languages of Addiction.