Damaged Goods

A Memoir

By: Shelley Louise

Narrated by: Jeanne Scurek

Length: 6 hrs and 12 mins

Publisher's summary

This is a deeply personal story of a young woman’s journey through addiction; the loss of her child’s father through an overdose, her mother’s suicide, and the tragic consequences that those lifestyle choices bring.

At 15, Shelley was submerged into the seedy world of the red-light district of Honolulu. As the warm-up act for the strippers, she became a topless dancer only to discover she was not emotionally prepared for the lewd attention. Pills and heroin helped her to cope with a lifestyle that was beyond her years.

Heartbreaking at times, this memoir follows Shelley as she makes her way into the rooms of recovery and the pitfalls and successes that await. Powerful, moving, and inspirational.

©2018 Shelley O'Sullivan (P)2021 Shelley O'Sullivan

Saved by NA

This story was decent and interesting enough to keep following but it's harder to get into a story about a normal person as opposed to a celebrity or someone remarkable. Still, her story was engaging enough to keep listening to but once she describes being saved by anonymous programs I instantly turned off. As a recovering addict myself I know that accomplishing sobriety is no easy task but I feel when someone relies too heavily on anonymous programs that that takes away from the sense of achievement. Just my opinion of course but I think sometimes depending on anonymous programs can be an addiction in itself. So i became bored when she started repeating the NA/AA mantras and buzz words like "we came to believe" and "character defects", etc. If you don't mind this, you might enjoy this book but if you don't like the tedium of NA/AA you might be disappointed when the author describes her involvement with these programs to get sober.

First Audio book was a win.

My husband often listens to Audio books on his audible account. I have always been a physical book person. I learned about this story and decided to give it a shot. I was blown away. It was so easy to listen to! A lot of my reason for disliking audio books is sometimes painful and slogging narration. This was TOTALLY different. The book is an autobiography about very disturbing though relatable troubles. The narration treats these subjects with tenderness while adding a strength to the voice of the character. I would totally recommend this audio book.

Excellent Story and Excellent Narration

As avid listeners to audio books, we have high expectations for narrators. The first audiobook we heard was narrated by Blair Brown, who set a extraordinarily high standard for all future audiobooks. In fact, we often choose an audiobook based on our confidence that the narrator meets that standard. The narrator of Damaged Goods is believable and makes an interesting story compelling. No matter how excellent a story is, if the narrator isn’t also excellent, the story falls flat. This audiobook is the best of both narration and story.

Everything about this - wow

Very interesting story and insights; well written and well narrated. Very glad the author shared her story ❤️

Horrible and Unbelievable narration.

I couldn’t listen to this book it seemed like a good story but the narrator is not believable in the role she is reading. I personally think a memoir should be narrated by the writer for it to make sense. So I couldn’t rate the story because it just didn’t ring true.