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Wasted (Hardcover)

by Mark Johnson (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
RRP: £12.99
Price: £9.09 & this item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions
You Save: £3.90 (30%)
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Frequently Bought Together

Customers buy this book with Mum Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid?: What Drugs Did to My Family by Elizabeth Burton Phillips

Wasted + Mum Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid?: What Drugs Did to My Family
Price For Both: £14.95

One of these items ships sooner than the other. Show details

  • This item: Wasted by Mark Johnson

    Temporarily out of stock.
    Order now and we'll deliver when available. We'll e-mail you with an estimated delivery date as soon as we have more information. Your account will only be charged when we ship the item.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

  • Mum Can You Lend Me Twenty Quid?: What Drugs Did to My Family by Elizabeth Burton Phillips

    In stock.
    Dispatched from and sold by Amazon.co.uk.
    This item Delivered FREE in the UK with Super Saver Delivery. See details and conditions

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 324 pages
  • Publisher: Sphere (3 May 2007)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 184744024X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1847440242
  • Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.8 x 3.4 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (22 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 141,471 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #50 in  Books > Biography > Social & Health Issues > Alcohol & Drug Abuse

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Product Description

Review

'As gripping as it is appalling, WASTED is all you could ask of a misery-and-trauma book - it's shocking and it's haunting and it's about one hell of a life' - Daily Mail


Product Description

Mark Johnson's father had 'LOVE' tattooed across his left hand, but that didn't stop the beatings. The Johnson children would turn up to school with broken fingers and chipped teeth, but no one ever thought of investigating their home life. Mark just slipped through the cracks, and kept on falling. For years. Constantly in trouble at school, Mark began stealing at the age of seven, was drinking by the age of eight, and took his first hit of heroin aged eleven. A sensitive, intelligent boy, he could never stay on the right path, and though Art College beckoned, he ended up in Portland prison instead. With searing honesty, WASTED documents Mark's descent into the depths of addiction and criminality. Homeless, hooked on heroin and crack, no one - least of all Mark - believed he would survive. And yet - astonishingly - he somehow pulled himself through, and now runs his own thriving tree surgery business, employing and helping other recovering addicts. His story is at once shocking and inspiring - a compelling account of one man's struggle to save himself, and help save others in the process.
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76% buy the item featured on this page:
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Customer Reviews

22 Reviews
5 star:
 (17)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (2)
1 star:    (0)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.5 out of 5 stars (22 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brave, breathtaking, brutally honest, 25 May 2007
By Willy Maley (Glasgow, Scotland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Lazy labels like `misery memoir' are slapped onto books of varying quality. Mark Johnson's Wasted, based on his life on the streets, is in a class of its own. It's a harrowing tale with a happy ending and a strong but far from simple message. Mark is an amazing success story, someone who, after years of abuse and addiction, offending and sleeping rough, has gone on to become living proof that rehab works. You could also say he's an example of the wisdom that comes with experience. In telling his own story, Mark is telling the story of other young people, and it's no surprise his ideas about mentoring are now being taken seriously by the probation service in England and Wales. There's nothing self-serving about his recollections, no denial, no preaching. This is the real deal from a writer who is bigger than the story he's telling, and with a story as powerful and compelling as this that's saying something. When Johnson talks about the world he came from, the one he left behind, and the one he wants to help others out of, his writing has the passing bell ring of truth. "Pranged is the tuning fork that never stops vibrating", Johnson says of the comedown from crack, "Pranged is fingernails on metal dustbin lids. Pranged is your body and mind being cut open and exposed to everything sharp in the world", and "pranged" is what the reader feels after putting down this brave, breathtaking, brutally honest book.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Raw, vivid, powerful, 15 May 2007
By Selma D (Bristol) - See all my reviews
"Wasted" is a book that will stop you in your tracks. It's no-holds-barred account of a violent childhood and adult life on the streets is at times painful to read. But its a read that you can't put down and which forces you to turn the page... then the next... and then the next.
Its exactly right that Amazon have paired the book with "Abandoned" by Anya Peters. I've read both and they complement each other perfectly - one describing homelessness and childhood suffering from a male perspective the other giving a female point of view.
Two aspects of both books stand out for me. An eye for the telling detail of everyday life that says so much more than a lengthy descirption. And the voice of the central characters which come across so distinctly. Its as though you are there on the streets yourself: in "Wasted" sleeping rough in doorways, looking for that next fix, in "Abandoned" living in your car, trying to maintain a pretence of normality when your situation is anything but. I couldn't say one book is better than the other. Read them both and its an experience you won't forget.
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10 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Stunningly Honest, 13 May 2007
A stunningingly honest account of Mr Johnsons life growing up in a home where he was not loved in the conventional sense. The book then goes on to depict in vivid prose how he went on to become a heroin and crack cocaine addict and his life living on the streets of Central London. Towards the end of this book Mark receives help and enters into rehabilitation and at last the reader gets a sense that this young man will eventually be able to live a happier, more healthy fulfilled life. Truly one off the most honest accounts I have read in years.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars AN EXCELLENT READ
This book is a superb insight into the downward spiral that a life of drugs and alcohol can bring. I use this book as a resource. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Jeannie Payne

5.0 out of 5 stars Rivetting read
A truly amazing life with the story moving at such a pace it takes your breath away!

Uplifting, depressing, sad, happy, funny. Read more
Published 3 months ago by G. Nasillo

4.0 out of 5 stars Wasted
I read this book working with adolescents, I have recommended that some of the adolescents I work with to read this.
Published 3 months ago by Hannah Lukacs

5.0 out of 5 stars Everyone should have read this book by the age of 15
This is a tour de force. A wonderfully articulate and emotive journey that grips you from start to finish. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Mr. S. Haillay

5.0 out of 5 stars MUST READ !!!
I can't think of any one who wouldn't benefit from reading this book, it really is an inspiring story - with thankfully a happy ending
Published 6 months ago by ginger

5.0 out of 5 stars A book that leaves you contemplating long after finishing..
I picked this book up on passing, after reading the back cover quickly.

It turned out to be one of the best books I have read for ages. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Joanne Vaughan

5.0 out of 5 stars Thought provoking
This book revealed how a child who is shown rejection will seek comfort and attention. It was not full of self pity and showed the difference recognition and respect makes in a... Read more
Published 7 months ago by A. E. Lalley

5.0 out of 5 stars If you are curious about heroin use, then read this.....
I have always been interested in the whys and what fors of heroin use. I could never understand why the addicts just couldn't give it up. Read more
Published 11 months ago by pws

5.0 out of 5 stars Great, great, great read
This is one of the the best memoirs I've ever read.
Deep characters, shocking story, didn't expect this kind of book could be true page turner. Read more
Published 12 months ago by x360power

5.0 out of 5 stars Honest, Powerful & Straight Talking
Mark Johnson brings us into a world that fortunately for most of us, we never see. This book brings you to the levels that Mark Johnson experienced. Read more
Published 17 months ago by John From London Town MBE

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