Viking Reviews: Tweak

Lindsay Lamont, Reporter

Nic Sheff had always felt like an outsider, in his family, with his friends, and with himself.

Years of failed therapy and familial strife led Nic to an extreme solution, one that came close ruined his entire life.

Nic Sheff’s memoir, Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines, is a gritty, eye-opening account of a spiraling addiction and the physical dangers of drug use. 

Tweak provides a first-hand account of how a turbulent childhood led Sheff to a dependency on drugs, endlessly pursuing an escape from reality. 

Sheff depicts the ups and downs of his addiction: the plummet into complete chaos as meth took over his life and ever-present hope during his many attempts to get sober.

Throughout Tweak, addiction proves to have a non-linear recovery, consisting of many trial-and-error attempts to get sober and eventually relapse. 

Like other memoirs about addiction, Nic Sheff provides his personal experience concerning his mental and physical health, and difficulty sustaining interpersonal relationships. 

However, David Sheff’s novel, Beautiful Boy, depicts the other side to Nic Sheff’s tragic story of addiction. 

David Sheff’s novel follows the exact timeline as Nic’s, but focuses on the effect of addiction on a family. 

David Sheff, Nic’s father, offers consolation to people with similar lives to the Sheffs, and opens the eyes of others to the complexity of living with an addict. 

Both Beautiful Boy and Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines work in tandem, offering a complete understanding of this particular addiction story.

Throughout the novel, Nic Sheff skillfully recounts his lifelong struggles against drugs in a brutally honest manner which will leave readers completely engrossed in Sheff’s story. 

Each page leaves readers hanging on to every word as if they were his last. 

As brutal as the book’s contents may seem, Sheff’s personal experience is a beacon of light shining onto the naivety of the average reader. 

Every chapter pulls you further and further into the stunning narrative, making it seem unable to put the book down. 

Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines is an emotional rollercoaster, allowing readers to observe the same events as Sheff experiences them firsthand. 

Readers will devour this book, cover to cover, in no time. 

You’ll quickly gain attachment to Nic Sheff, his life, and his family, and you won’t be able to stop until you reach the book’s conclusion. 

Tweak: Growing up on Methamphetamines has been on bookshelves since 2007, is available in almost every public library, and can be bought online in most online stores