In the book Beautiful Boy David Sheff the father describes his and his family’s experience dealing with his son Nic who is addicted to the drug crystal meth. In telling his story David takes us down memory lane to the beginning of his life with his first wife who gives birth to his son Nic.
In this book I think that David Sheff lays down a great foundation into the life of his son Nic. He tells us how brilliant Nic is, that Nic has a great imagination and that all of his teachers thinks that he is a very smart and intelligent boy. But on the other hand he also lets us know that Nic is torn between the fact that he has to live two lives, one with his father and one with his mother. In the beginning it was good because his mother did not live to far from him but when she relocates things get a little more complicated.
David Sheff is a writer who has published articles in many well known magazines, he had books published on cultural phenomena while telling his and Nic story he takes us through the rise of Nintendo, the beginning of the Mario Brothers video game by the sheer talent that he shares he keeps the reader intrigued throughout the book.
From the beginning of the book I think that David blames himself for Nic’s addiction. Throughout the book David questions himself about some of the things that he did with Nic as a young child and when he was fully into his addiction.
Some key questions that came out was during the divorce proceedings was he being selfish in the fact that he wanted Nic to live with him or did he truly want this or was this just a way to get back at Nic’s mother because of the failure of their marriage. By his own admission and the fact that they had to let a court decide on who Nic would stay with I can only imagine that this was a very hard divorce for Nic to have to go through. Also in making this decision did David or Nic’s mother take into consideration what effect their fighting had on Nic?
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