My Amazon and Goodreads review of The Taste of Cigarettes: A Memoir of a Heroin Addict (Rating 5): Soars with Poetry, Sears With Pain – Jon Vreeland’s memoir, The Taste of Cigarettes, is a detailed and vivid description of a junkie’s nightmare existence. Just when readers think his body can’t take more abuse, we descend into yet another graphic tale of life off the rails and in the gutter. Such is the nature of addiction and Vreeland renders the endless search for the next fix in language that soars with poetry and sears with pain. Only the haunting anguish of permanent separation from his young daughters finally pushes him across the line from overdose to recovery, from obsession to redemption. Vreeland has written a hell of a book that ends on a rushing updraft of hope.
