How close can someone get to the edge of death? (The Other Side of Nowhere - Danniella Westbrook)

Member Name: Jonni_boi

Product:	The Other Side of Nowhere - Danniella Westbrook
Date:	17/07/09 (107 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: good thoughtful, and will help cocaine addicts

Disadvantages: Some people won't want to read about her awful life

Everywhere I go, whether it is up town, or to one of Birmingham's endless out of town shopping centres, dad always drags us into one shop that I hate being in. I don't really know why I hate being in there, maybe it's because I don't want people seeing me in the shop or something like that. Anyhow when I'm not with my dad, I steer clear from this shop. This shop is called Pound land. And this is the shop where I came across this autobiography. If I was a little bit older maybe I would have known who was on the front cover, but I didn't and decided to take it home anyway just to see if I liked it.

I had never ever heard of Danniella Westbrook, when I first picked up the book, and so I was really weary of reading the book, so I decided to flip through the pictures (as I normally do) and there was pictures of her being in "I'm a celebrity... Get me out of here". But she went on day 9 because she had loss all sense of support and felt like she'd have taken coke if there was some! I don't remember her being in the jungle, so that didn't recollect my mind. I never remember her being in a newspaper with that dreaded nose! But this is one amazing story, and I wouldn't dare go near cocaine (ok well I haven't actually been thinking of going near cocaine, but you know what I mean) and so I think this book is most suited for teenagers so that they can keep away from cocaine!

I never watched Danniella Westbrook in EastEnders, and so I seriously had never heard of her, but I'm so glad I did pick up this book, but you have to be pushing your luck if you think I'm going to thank my dad!

Anyhow, as I mention in all my autobiographies/biographies reviews, I always like looking through the pictures, like when I get bored of continuous reading I tend to stop at a chapter and flip through the pictures. There is 1 picture in particular which looks gruesome but effective and that is Danniella before she had her nose fixed, and it looks really horrible. She sorted out the pictures by doing a pre-op with the picture of her septum missing, and then she has a post-op next to it, where she is looking like any other person!

These reviews are always quite tricky, I want to tell you everything that happened in the book, but then it would just be easier for you to go out and buy the book and to read it, rather than reading this review. So I shall tell you little bits (if I can).

I started reading this book and thought that it was pretty weird, it felt like she was trying to invite us into taking cocaine, which is quite the opposite of what she wanted to do, but I thought this because she was explaining what made her take cocaine in the first place and why and how she became so addicted. She ended up with a child called Kai. She was extremely lucky that he is well because while being pregnant she was endlessly using cocaine. She also had another child called Jodie; again Danniella was really lucky because she was highly using cocaine for the first 3 months. Kai and Jodie turned out perfectly healthy, to her relief, but I think that if they didn't she would have been really depressed and taken even more cocaine!

Danniella talks about her struggles and fights with cocaine, and how messed up in the head she was. She remembers, at one stage, that she was watching TV and This Morning came on with Richard and Judy, and Danniella, back then, was thinking why is it being repeated, as she had already watched it. And then she realised she had watched TV for 24 hours. She was that messed up she couldn't tell 1 day to the next.

But she finally tries to change things round after being sent to an American rehabilitation centre. She didn't want to live that life any more and also social services had taken Kai away. But she was sent to the Arizona rehab centre because she was really, really ill and she had 2 whole weeks left to live if she didn't stop. Not only that, but she was 3 months pregnant with Jodie. Danniella didn't want to go, but Kevin (father of Jodie, and, at the time, future husband) forced her to go.

She endlessly said in this book, that it doesn't matter which rehab centre you go to, you have to WANT to get off drugs, it won't work otherwise if you are doing it for somebody else, and it has to be for you!

I was captured in this book within a second and I truly enjoyed it. She is one brilliant author, and she's probably do well in this author world. But by the looks of things, I don't think she will be releasing any more books as of yet, but if she did I would definitely go out and buy them. I feel that she has possibly saved at least 1cocaine addict and I would so much like it if she could save a hell of a lot more people!

I gave this book a 4.5 star rating, so I just knocked it down that half as Dooyoo doesn't do halves! I gave it this rating because I was couldn't stop reading the book, every little bit of spare time that I had all drained away because I was reading this book

I really don't know what else I can say. I truly did enjoy this book, and I want everyone else to enjoy it! I thank you all for reading, and I sure hope I have helped some people make up their mind whether or not to read this book!

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