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Fall to Pieces: A Memoir of Drugs, Rock ‘n’ Roll, and Mental Illness by Mary Forsberg Weiland with Larkin Warren, Harper Collins, 2009.

About the book (from Harper Collins):
“In March 2007, twenty-four hours after Mary Weiland dragged her husband Scott’s pricey rock-star wardrobe onto their driveway and torched it, she was locked up in a mental hospital. Watching all this were her frightened extended family, a conflicted husband wrestling with demons of his own, and a tabloid industry gone gleeful at the “Bonfire in Toluca Lake!”

To the outside world, Weiland had led what seemed to be an enviable life. A successful international model in the nineties, she married her longtime sweetheart—famed lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots and, later, Velvet Revolver, Scott Weiland—in 2000. Mary was the sane one, went the story—it was the tempestuous, unpredictable Scott who was crazy. In her gripping memoir Fall to Pieces, Mary Weiland reveals that the truth is somewhere in between.

From her earliest days in San Diego, Weiland displayed signs of trouble: a black depression that sometimes left her immobile for days, a temper that sent her into wild rages she didn’t understand, an overdose. But her fierce determination to “have more” led to early success as a model. At sixteen, she fell in love at first sight with Scott Weiland, then an aspiring musician who was hired to drive her to and from modeling gigs. Slowly, her casual relationship with beer and pot grew into an affair with cocaine and heroin that rivaled her love for Scott, who was addicted as well. From rehab to rehab, from breakup to reconciliation to eventual marriage, the couple fought their way back, welcomed the babies they’d dreamed of, and hoped their struggles were behind them. Then came the bonfire breakdown and the full onset of Mary’s bipolar disorder, a widely misunderstood and misdiagnosed mental illness that affects more than five million Americans and had been, in fact, stalking Mary Weiland since her teens.

With refreshing candor, innate comic timing, and earned wisdom, Weiland recounts the extreme highs and lows of her life, including an unforgettable love affair with the man she always knew she’d marry, the careers and rock tours that took them around the world, and her fight to finally come to grips with the addictions that could have killed her. In her journey to understand and manage her bipolar disorder, she takes the reader on a wild ride into the dark and back into the light.”

My Review:

Once I started Fall to Pieces, I had to find out what happened next and read the entire book in day. I’ve always been a fan of Scott Weiland since his STP days and I was interested to hear more about his personal life. I was impressed that Mary never spoke poorly of Scott, but told her story with him in it, however dark it was at times. Many other famous people, like Charlize Theron and Mark Wahlberg, were also part of her story and made the book even more intriguing.

Mary’s story about battling her drug addiction and coping with bipolar disorder was compelling, honest and raw. She discussed her struggles through a troubled childhood, a teenage modeling career, a rock n’ roll relationship and a mental illness she didn’t know she had. She wasn’t correctly diagnosed until later in life and now is coping and dealing with her bipolar disorder and addictive behavior. The ending is a ode to new beginnings and hope. Weiland is nothing but optimistic and realistic about her future and tells her story to give hope and help to others in her situation.

If you enjoy memoirs and compelling life stories, you will enjoy this book. There is romance, glamour, sadness, hope, motherhood, drama, conflict, love and addiction all within the pages of Fall to Pieces, which makes it a must read memoir.

Want more: Check out this Video from Mary Forsberg Weiland discussing why she wrote her story.

The Giveaway:
I have an extra copy of Fall to Pieces to give away thanks to Imran at Meryl L Moss Media Relations, Inc. You can earn up to 6 entries for this giveaway. Please leave a separate comment for each entry and a way to contact you.

First Entry
1. Leave a comment. Please leave an email or way to contact you if you win.

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This contest will end on Friday December 18, 2009 at 10:00 pm, central time. I will use random.org to select one lucky winner and contact via email. (If winner does not respond in 48 hours, I will pick another.) U.S. entries only. Good luck and thanks for entering!

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book f0r review from Meryl L. Moss Media Relations,Inc. The views and opinions expressed are all me. Full disclosure policy here.

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