Love Sick It is a bit confusing at the beginning, but as soon as it starts up, It keeps you guessing...
Weird book I bought this book because if focuses on addiction and particularly eating disorders. I like that this book explores the 12 step premise for both OA and AA.
I liked the characters although I was not overly fond of Erika and her weird, weird thinking (although I can see the relationship between her thinking and her illness) - still some of it was a bit much.
What I did not like and thought was very, very weird was the basic storyline. Just not believable in anyway and fell very flat. I am sure the author could have come up with a better introduction for these two people.
Finished the book in two days and felt cheated somehow. Of course, the ending is also a little too pat.
Wooden and flat execution of a story about teenage addiction and compulsion LoveSick is a story of sickness and love. Ted is a teenage alcoholic, his basketball scholarship to a prestigious college rescinded as a result of a drunk-diving accident. Erica is a freshman at the same college who suffers from bulimia. Erica's uber-rich father makes Ted an offer he can't refuse: send periodic emails with updates on Erica's status, and Ted can have a free ride at the college that his blue collar family couldn't afford.
Jake Coburn's premise is a good one, but the execution is poor and near laughably unbelievable. Erica's father communicates with Ted via an all-knowing ultra-spy intermediary, a man who monitors every financial, medical, and social move Erica makes. If the father has this man at his disposal, why does he need Ted? Communication takes place in a high-tech secret email domain. Erica hides her conversations with her therapist by chatting with him in an online chess room. Coburn mis-uses teenage slang, substituting words like "download" when he means "down-low," as in getting the down-low in information on someone. He smatters the text with unnecessary and detracting pop-culture consumer references.
As for the portrayal of teen addiction, the bulimia seems reasonable at a glance, especially Erica's family's dysfunctional reaction. Ted's relationship with AA, however, is wooden, employing the words Higher Power and Big Book, but with none of the true sentiments of AA as an integral part of the text or his personal philosophy.Disappointed.... I think this is the only book I have ever read that I had a hard time picturing what was going on in my mind. The story line and charactors were great but I wasn't really impressed with how the book was written. Great Read! LoveSick, is a great read! Accurate and Candid are the descriptions given in the book, of both alcohol abuse, and bulmia. To some it could come across as sickening and not needed, but necessary to help others who have not experienced either understand what both vices can do to your life, and how recovery is always a one day at a time process.
