South of Bixby Bridge [Kindle Edition]

This is a Kindle book by a brand new writer that is a bargain at its $3.99 price. When I was making up my mind whether to order it or not, I looked at the reviews. Out of 117 reviews, 107 people gave it the highest possible rating. Naturally I was intrigued. And now that I've finished the book in just two days, I can understand what all the praise was about.

The main character is a young man who has trouble with drugs and alcohol. He's lost his house and his girlfriend, , has no money and has just gotten out of rehab. He copes the best way he can, resisting drugs, sleeping in his car and looking for a job. But soon, his life changes. He is given a job in a upscale investment firm by a very wealthy man and his life then takes on what seems to be in a positive direction. He is wined and dined and soon is earning an outrageous amount of big bucks and starts to live a lifestyle that is pure fantasyland. He is back on drugs and alcohol though and is even romancing the rich man's wife. Soon though, things start to fall apart.

The book is extremely fast paced. Something new happens almost every page. Once I started reading I was absolutely hooked. The young man's world became my own and I wallowed in the details of the over-the-top and decadent lifestyles of the characters. There is plenty of glitz and glamour and lots of titillation and the writing is so good that the reader cannot help but identify with the main character. There are twists and turns and lots of turmoil but in the end, things turn out for the best and the book ends on a positive and satisfactory note.

It's rare that a book captures my attention and holds so well. I literally could just not put it down. I am therefore happy to give it one of my highest recommendations.

I'm going to run out of adjectives to describe this book before I run out of review, but here goes. This is the kind of book that totally captures your imagination. Trevor kept me up all night because I had to see if he could get to his demons before they destroyed him completely. His demons, being alcohol, drugs--anything to help keep the terrifying emotions he keeps buried from surfacing.

This is the story of the pain of addiction--it's a story of what it means to be human. Trevor is the son of an abusive, alcoholic father, and a mother who tries her best to protect her son, and finally dies of cancer early in her son's life. Ryan Winfield gives the reader an up-close-and-person view of what happens when we bury pain so deep that even we can't see it. We can feel something, like the effects of a body in space on a planet that we can't see. We see the planet's wobble so we know something's there, but it's invisible to our eyes because it's too far away.

Trevor's pain so consumes his life until it takes more, and more of any numbing substance to keep it pushed down and out of sight. Fired as a money-manager because of risky behavior with money and his health, Trevor seemingly hits bottom when he nearly dies of an over-dose in a hot tub. After a stint in rehab, paid for by his girl-friend's mother, Trevor leaves still not knowing what his pain is, so of course he finds it all over again. This time he gets a job with a billionaire fund manager who uses Trevor again, only this time in a larger way that finally shows Trevor where bottom is.

Winfield does an excellent job of showing how what we don't bring out of the depths of our subconscious can destroy us, but he does it without any preaching. He does it in a stark and honest way that has to hit home for anyone who's ever used anything to bury a hurt from the past. I love the way Winfield uses his character's car to parallel what's happening to Trevor himself. Just as Trevor was given the gift of his body from his mother, so too was he given the gift of a Porsche. Trevor lives his car at times and even as he has to sell it to live, and then has it taken from him by Paul, the car represents Trevor's body. Life bangs it up, but there are always people to help mend the car, and Trevor himself when he lets them.

This is a brilliant debut from an exciting new author and I'll be waiting anxiously for his next work, though I have no idea how he's going to top South of Bixby Bridge.

This is a very well written book as indicated by the large number off 5-star reviews. The author made me like the main character, Trevor, and that was the only reason I did not stop reading half way through when the content became very graphic. Instead, I kept reading because I wanted to know what happened to Trevor in the end, and I'm glad I did; however, this is a very disturbing book and several days after completing it, I am still haunted by the horrific images. The message of hope and perseverance is a good one and it's worth reading, but the reader should be cautioned about the graphic content. If this becomes a movie, it will be R-rated. I also agree with another reviewer who found the lack of conventional quotation marks to denote conversation frustrating.