One of the things I like to do, when I have “free” time, is write book reviews.

I have been writing for SFBR and the Sacramento edition for several years now, and recently began doing “sponsored reviews” for them, which often entails reading books not unlike what I primarily help clients write and produce: Self-published titles.

For this March issue, I reviewed a book thematically identical to my client Brad DeHaven’s Defining Moments.

I recommend both books for two different and original takes on parenting drug addicts.  Each has a unique hook: Dina Kucera’s Everything I Never Wanted to Be feels a bit like the old Roseanne show– for any of you old enough to remember it.  The author is a comedian, and her self-deprecating humor allows the reader to experience her pain and her life-saving way of laughing at her pain.  If she couldn’t make a joke of all these awful circumstances, she wouldn’t be able to survive.

Brad has a great sense of humor, but his memoir is less funny and more true crime, as he takes the reader with him into the line of fire, where he voluntarily placed himself to keep his drug-dealer son out of jail.

Both good reads.  I love my job, and my “free time” too.