Silver Screen Fiend: Learning About Life from an Addiction to Film by Patton Oswalt

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Publication date: 2015
Publisher: Scribner
Pages: 222
My rating: 3 stars
Ages: 16+

Oswalt spent four years sinking deeper and deeper into his addiction. It was alcohol or drugs, but film. He needed it, craved it, as much as any other drug. He planned his weeks around his movies, lost a girlfriend, and alienated friends. While he eventually found his way out, he shares these stories to show what he learned.

This is one of those books that makes you rethink your own life and actions. Are you enjoying life or only seeing it through a screen or reading it on a page? Like Oswalt, are we saying that we are going to do something, that we're getting "inspiration," but never actually doing it?

In fact, there were times that I almost felt uncomfortable reading it because I could see parts of myself in it. But I think that's what made it good and worth reading. Shouldn't memoirs help us learn a little about ourselves? The writing was good and entertaining. I think those interesting in film and cinema would especially like it.

There was some hard language.

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