User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
This is Hunter Biden's memoir. Hunter is the son of President Joe Biden and brother of the late Beau Biden. Beautiful Things covers the key tragedies marking Hunter's life and the gritty details of his addiction to alcohol and crack.
More than anything, this is a brutally honest story of addiction. Hunter takes full responsibility for every sordid detail and his many failures and setbacks. Most people talk about how awesome they are or how they only slipped up one time. Hunter doesn't gloss over what he has done. He doesn't hide. He isn't proud of his behavior, but he also can't change the past nor get help while hiding in the darkness.
Beautiful Things should be the rallying cry to discuss addiction, a serious problem that most people speak to in terms of disgust. People often think, "That person is an addict because they don't have any willpower." However, instead of judging others, why don't we offer them a hand? In advance of attending a work function, one of my co-workers who had a known alcohol problem spoke about how he felt uncomfortable not drinking at business events. I told him that I would not be drinking, not a drop. I just say, "I don't drink" and pick up a Sprite or water. Knowing that he wouldn't be the only person not partaking in the adult beverages, he felt safer declining the drinks.
As with most addiction battles, relapses happen, and old patterns are very, very difficult to break. How many people vow to lose 20 pounds? If they lose the weight, how many people ever actually keep it off? It is almost impossible. Hunter didn't hold back about relapses and his fight for sobriety.
One of the things that shouldn't be taken for granted is all of the support especially medical care that Hunter and Beau received that all people should be entitled to. When Beau was sick, he was in the hospital and getting an MRI and being helicoptered to other hospitals within a very short period of time. When my heart was blocked and I showed up at the ER, I was ignored until they served every single other patient in the ER. Only when I passed out cold in the waiting room did they bother giving me any attention. Hunter had the benefit of flying all over the world for countless private rehab facilities and living with a private sober coach. Meanwhile, I have been trying to schedule an appointment at Henry Ford Medical Center for 2 weeks! Many people simply don't have access to this type of medical care, and it really is shocking when you truly need high quality healthcare to get pushed aside, not taken seriously, and given up on especially if you have a problem that takes more than 5 minutes to solve.
2022 Reading Schedule
Jan Animal Farm
Feb Lord of the Flies
Mar The Da Vinci Code
Apr Of Mice and Men
May Memoirs of a Geisha
Jun Little Women
Jul The Lovely Bones
Aug Charlotte's Web
Sep Life of Pi
Oct Dracula
Nov Gone with the Wind
Dec The Secret Garden
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Rating: really liked it
I’m not crying. You’re crying! Raw, real, and brutally honest. Hunter Biden’s memoir will forever stay with me. That epilogue! Highly highly recommended! Listen to the audio! It’s so good!
Rating: really liked it
Nothing to see here unless you like reading about pitiful people who are simply useless to themselves and everyone around them.
If this man had been sober for years then it would have been respectable to tell a story of what he had overcome and all the things he had accomplished during that time. Unfortunately he admits that he was barely sober when he started writing this book and his thinking doesn't get much clearer as book drones on.
He details numerous mistakes he has made....and writing this book is just one more to add to his list of dumb decisions so stay-tuned because this story is only about to get worse when the book ends up in the remainder bin in 30 days after it was released.
Rating: really liked it
Get comfy; I have some thoughts.
As I saw it, this book has three pieces. The first (and most successful, IMO) is the family story, about the early car crash that bonded Hunter, Beau, and Joe; the family's political journey; and Beau's illness and death. Hunter has the most insight here and demonstrates the most humanity, in no small part, I think, because it's ultimately about how he exists in the context of other people. How his relationship with Beau shaped him, and how Beau's death was like removing a leg from a three-legged stool. It's beautifully written and deeply sad. You get a sense not just of Beau's meteoric potential, but also how beloved and essential he was in the Biden family.
Second was my least favorite, but probably a necessary piece – when Hunter walks you through his resume and tap dances like mad to convince you that he's worthy. I don't care how hard you stamp your foot about going to Yale or advocating on behalf of Jesuit ministries, your unacknowledged privilege is still bursting at the seams and nobody's voting for you, my dude. He goes through the Burisma mess in excruciating detail. It's one of those things that's boring for people who don't see any there there (me) and probably inadequate for those who see a vast conspiracy (take a wild guess).
Last, making up the bulk of the book, is the addiction story. There is this maxim of memoir that you can't/shouldn't write about something until you're adequately distanced from it to see it with the proper perspective. The perspective that Hunter Biden has about his addiction extends no further than about 2 centimeters from his own face. Honestly, I'm worried about the guy. This shit is so,
so fresh. His lack of self-awareness and perspective is raw, compelling, and incredibly tenuous.
Don't get me wrong; he is doing (part of) the work here. He is making a moral inventory of himself (4th step of AA), but he is not quite examining or admitting the exact nature of his wrongs (5th step). The result is a little hard to swallow. He regales the reader with tales of depravity with a kind of weaponized candor that can make addicts so dangerously charismatic. Brené Brown calls it floodlighting – when you share too much, too fast, too soon in order to protect yourself from real vulnerability.
He talks a lot about how much he misses his family, his daughters in particular, without writing much of anything about how terrifying, destabilizing, and painful it must have been for them. He is quick to admit that he's at fault for putting distance between himself and his daughters, but that distance is still something that is happening
to him.
One of the most glaring omissions is the lack of recognition of how lucky (read: white, rich) he is not to be dead or in prison. He almost seems to chuckle as he describes buying crack in dangerous places, where his biggest worries were getting ripped off (it seems to be more a matter of principle than an actual financial concern), having to wait a long time in his car, and being mistaken for a cop.
When he meets his current wife at the end of the book, he's still using. She helps him get clean, and they get married six days after their first date. I couldn't help but cringe and tried hard not to speculate about just how co-dependent his new wife is/was. I wish the guy (and his wife and new baby) all the best, and I sincerely hope it goes well for them. I am not optimistic. He clearly knows that he's not out of the woods yet, but I'm not sure he appreciates how few survival skills he possesses while he's still in there.
I have known many Hunter Bidens. Whatever it is – drugs, religion, new love – they are all in. This kind of intensity can be extremely alluring, and when it comes along with a tragic backstory, downright irresistible.
So how is it as a book? I may not have the best objectivity here, and it's hard for me to separate my assessment of the man from my assessment of his writing. He writes well. It's a good book. When he says he's going to be okay, I don't totally believe him.
Rating: really liked it
The book started okay with his recollection of Bo and his upbringing. But he totally lost all credibility when he minimized the Joe Biden plagiarism and lying scandals during his first presidential run. Loosely based off a speech? BS! Not only did Joey plagiarize the speech almost word for word, he was lying on his campaign trail about his credentials, education, upbringing, civil rights involvement, the circumstances behind his wife's death, etc.
One thing is for sure - when Hunter said a scandal of plagiarism wouldn't even matter today, he was spot on. Clearly, the American public and the media don't give a crap if you're being lied to your face as long as it's coming from their political side. We allowed social media and mainstream news to bury opposition research against Biden while they campaigned on behalf of Biden to push every potential and unverified scandal against Trump.
Hunter is a gaslighter, just like his father, and wants you to believe he's the victim in all of this. Which is buffoonery. I understand that most people are good and want to sympathize with a person in pain, and Hunter has gone through much of it. However, this does not excuse his BS behavior. it doesn't make him upstanding, it doesn't make him a role model, and it definitely doesn't warrant him getting one of the only Management deals with the Chinese government... But it seems that all it takes to get public support, no matter the degeneracy, is to come out with a self pitying book and be bolstered by the media complex.
When did people stop being able to see through all the bullshit...?
Rating: really liked it
I went into this book because I was courious to hear Hunter side of his addiction and so on. This was raw and bit emotional to listen to. While I didn't always agree with nor understand him, I found this to be a good memoir. People aren't perfect and and in difficulties and addiction to that there is often going to be a mess.
Rating: really liked it
This was not a terrible book. It was not a good book either. It definitely wouldn’t have been published if Hunter wasn’t the presidents son. And I guess that’s my main problem with this book.
Hunter Biden is man of incredible privilege that he never really addresses. He doesn’t really explore his own motivations, thoughts, or feelings. He doesn’t even really know his triggers for drug use. Overall, he comes across as somewhat selfish. He admits mistakes but doesn’t analyze them. He uses his platform to complain, and he never really apologizes for being a massive liability to his family.
Is he a criminal mastermind? No I don’t think so. I think he’s an addict who earned easy money as a benefit from his famous family and last name. But he doesn’t even seem chagrined about all the harm he’s done. His sobriety story is also really hurtful as well. He couldn’t get clean for his daughters or dad but he fell in love with a blue eyed stranger and all of a sudden his urge to use drugs is gone???
Suffice it to say I don’t think me and Hunter would be chill IRL since I found him to be cocky and annoying in this memoir. So I’d say skip the celebrity tell all for something more authentic. 2.8/5 stars
Rating: really liked it
In this honest, sincere, heartbreaking, and gut wrenching memoir, Hunter Biden reflects back on his life. Writing about the highs and lows (the very very lows), he bravely lets you see the demons he fought, but also lets you see the unbreakable bonds of love, respect, and family ties that have lifted him up and sustained him throughout his life.
Parts of this book are hard to read because Hunter writes candidly about his battles with alcohol and drug abuse over many years. He admitted himself into rehab many times, only to end up relapsing. With the never ending support of his family, he has been able to beat his addictions.
Hunter Biden writes with humility at the end of his memoir, “what an incredible gift it is: to live in the light of beautiful things”. Unforgettable.
Rating: really liked it
Picture a hard-core crack addict. I'm talking about someone who literally lives only for that next hit of crack. Someone who leaves the room every twenty minutes to smoke more crack. Someone who allows legions of complete strangers to rip him off to the tune of many thousands of dollars and doesn't care, as long as the crack keeps rolling in.
What comes to mind? Do you picture a Yale Law graduate? An esteemed board member of multiple organizations? A guy who was paid a monthly five-figure salary to be on the board of a foreign oil company? A person who grew up with all the advantages? Private schools, exciting vacations, and a large extended family so shot through with love that you wish you were part of it?
No? Not what you were picturing? Me niether.
Meet Hunter Biden. After years of struggling with alcohol addiction, he moved on to crack cocaine, and set off down a path of self destruction that should have killed him on multiple occasions. Had he not met Melissa when he did, he probably would have died, causing unbearable grief to his family.
Reading about addiction makes me a bit squirmy because it's so baffling to me that someone would willingly do that to themselves. But the way Hunter has written his story helps us feel compassion for those whose chemistry drives that compulsion to keep chasing the feeling of well-being that banishes pain and anxiety.
I'm so glad Hunter got a happy ending, and I wish only good things for him as he continues his life of recovery.
Rating: really liked it
The audiobook started out okay with relatable themes of familial ties and serious illness heartaches, but it went downhill from there. He came off as privileged, arrogant, narcissistic, self-absorbed and indulgent. A lot like sociopaths talking about their crimes in the many true crime books I read.
Rating: really liked it
This memoir was raw. It showed how addictions control and can destroy. But it also shows how love can conquer it. The Biden love never wavered. The bond between Beau and Hunter was not broken when Beau died. I highly recommend this book but bring your Kleenex.
Rating: really liked it
Hunter Biden drove a car into the air off the I-10 in Palm Springs just a few miles from where I live in the California desert.
I know this because I just finished his debut memoir, BEAUTIFUL THINGS. Any memoir by the president's son is a Big Release, so I was increasingly tortured by the reviews pouring into my inbox. Having read his father's memoir and Obama's behemoth Memoir Number One, I thought I'd go ahead and read this. But in all this year's hooplah, I forgot I pre-0rdered the book months ago. With the reviews suddenly pouring in, it was infuriating then that my USPS tracking for the book's shipment got all messed up.
If you've talked to me in the last three days, you already know this.
It's not just that I was curious what Hunter would write about. That an NPR review referred to it as "a 12 Step meeting" or the added anticipation by the goofy mail tracking. I feel an odd kinship with the Biden family's loss. I feel an odd kinship with a lot of stranger's loss, a weird side effect I suppose afflicts us that have lost the person we love the most. But when I hear Joe Biden talk about the months after losing his first wife and infant daughter in a car accident (even if it's the same recycled speech he's had to utter a thousand times) there's something in his recitation that feels true to me. The anger he talks about, the big gaping hole while you're moving through the motions.
When my father was hospitalized for a near fatal illness in the summer of 2019, I read a long article in The New Yorker about whether Hunter Biden was a liability for his father's presidential campaign. Even though there were a million Democratic candidates for president back then, Joe Biden was always a favorite of my father's. That he'd chosen not to run in 2016 amidst personal tragedy was something my dad brought up a lot. When he was taken off intubation, I told him about the Hunter Biden article I'd read at his bedside. He didn't remember this conversation, I later learned. I had to send him the article again last fall.
So maybe it's more than just the grief speech. I'm a little biased.
The Biden family story is familiar to all at this point, especially after the insanity of the 2020 election. It wasn't just Joe Biden's personal history. His story of grief and resiliency was used as a way to connect with voters. Even powerful people have pain! the message seemed to hammer. The death of his eldest son, Beau, to brain cancer in 2015 was also a constant on the campaign trail. Beau was the Attorney General of Delaware, a veteran of the Armed Forces. The Golden Son, if you were to believe the stories.
It always left me wondering about Hunter. His struggles with substance abuse went acknowledged but unexplored in the press, even to the extent that Trump and his cronies tried to harp on them. Hunter's oldest daughter is about my age, and I remember looking her up on Instagram during the election last fall and wondering what her life was like. She was pictured on the campaign, as were her two younger sisters. But her father never was. Over and over the Biden family remembered their lost son, Beau. But rarely did they mention Hunter. "Where's Hunter?" Trump would taunt at his rallies/Klan meetings.
It turns out Hunter was at the Chauteau Marmont cooking up his own crack cocaine under the tutelage of Curtis, a former pro-skateboarder turned addict.
The book goes on in this way. Opening on an agonizing account of Beau's illness and death (familiar if you read Joe's memoir, though this recounting is from a different angle.) Soon, Hunter is drowning in the wreckage of his already ailing marriage. The death of his brother proves too much. For almost four years he goes from functioning alcoholic to full on crack addict. The fact that much of this was kept out of the press and unbeknownst to us will have you amazed once again with the skill of a powerful PR team.
Hunter writes lovingly about his family and openly about his working relationship with Burisma. He spares nothing when it comes to his addiction and his descent into further debaucherous behavior. But like all "political" memoirs, this one has the strong scent of repression. Strange, for a story that starts off with Hunter acknowledging the painful repression that sets the tone for the rest of his life.
How do you mourn a mother and sister you never got to know? How do you acknowledge the hole their absence has left behind when you have a mother figure and gigantic, loving family around you, providing for your every need? You repress your feelings of course! You act out! You struggle in school! And ultimately, you drink!
Hunter is barely out of the woods here. He's good at recognizing how fragile his recovery is, even while he has a hopeful reason to start anew. (His new wife, Melissa, and their one-year-old son Beau.) But he's still writing from a place of protection. Whether it's to protect his father, the now President of the United States or his daughters, there's a veneer that never fully gets lifted.
It's easy to tell war stories, but it's harder to reflect on what caused you to be at war to begin with. This is a mistake that a lot of memoirist make and a lot of readers are all too ready to consume. By telling us his craziest stories, Hunter makes it seem like he's really baring it all. But he's just telling us another addict's drop in the bucket. Not to diminish his behavior--it really does suck.
But I found myself pitying his ex-wife, Kathleen, and their children. After more than two decades of marriage, their divorce occurs in the most painful, humiliating way possible while Hunter is off getting high and Kathleen is left to parent their three girls. His anger towards her seems thinly veiled at times, though he once refers to her as "brave." Kathleen set hard boundaries as their marriage broke up and his addiction worsened. It seems Hunter hasn't found a place of forgiveness for her yet, no her him. If they have (and if they haven't) he's chosen not to write about it. Whether to protect her or their children, I can't be sure.
He also goes into minute detail about his business dealings, especially his work with Burisma. None of it sounds shady, though I suspect it will always be a difficult task to make sense of paying any powerful man five figures a month to "consult" on anything. Shady or not.
I found myself more interested in what Hunter wrote about the pressure to perform and make money, especially when him and Kathleen get married in a hurry after she becomes pregnant. They're in love and have a new baby, but the expectations of the life they want to live force both of them into hasty decisions that don't seem to allow for much happiness. Hunter writes about it but doesn't reflect on it deeply. I could've traded two or three of the Burisma pages for more on that.
There's only a line or two about his child with a woman in Arkansas, whom he originally claimed was lying about his fathering her child. I'm sure this is a difficult topic, but in a memoir all about family with endless mentions of his four acknowledged children, it felt like a glaring omission.
I suspect when his children are older and Joe is no longer the sitting president, we'll get another memoir. Hunter's writing is conversational and the pace is breakneck. Despite the aforementioned veneer, the tone is honest and consistent. Hunter's voice feels genuine, which is perhaps why I wanted more of it in the places where he was holding back.
Again, I found myself identifying with his grief story. Not only his mother and sister, but brother Beau. Though I had ten more years with my mother than Hunter had with his, I too find her death wheedles holes into my life in unexpected ways. There are little griefs throughout everything I do, whether it's a medical paperwork I can't complete because I don't know the answer or her handwriting on the back of some old picture I pull out of a frame. I, too, have been loved and mothered by many others through out my life. And yet still...
The medical arduousness of death is something Joe and Hunter both write about with acuity. I went through it with my mother, my grandmother, and again with my father, when he nearly died a year ago.
It's hardly more than a day or two that goes by when I don't think about that day. My partner, Erik, and I went to lunch because I had the day off. We walked over to Prospect Park, in Brooklyn, to go to a Mexican restaurant we'd long lusted after. We sat on their patio in the sun for several hours until we went back home. I made my way up to our rooftop deck to read, but stopped to call my dad like I usually did on my off days.
My dad might be dead today if I hadn't made that call.
There were so many other things that could've gotten in the way. Maybe we stayed an extra hour at lunch. Maybe we stopped in one of the shops at Prospect Park, further delaying our trip home. Maybe I fell asleep on the couch. Maybe I decided to call him after I read a bit.
Who knows what forces move the world? Who knows what made my stepmother answer after a single ring when I called her to say Dad seemed unwell. It's our family's inside joke that none of us know why my stepmom even has a cell phone, she answers it so infrequently. I found myself in this place again while Hunter wrote about being in the back seat of his mother's car that day. Right next to his brother.
Because the fact is, he was in the backseat. I did call my dad. Both of them lived. A tale not always pretty, but in the end, beautiful in its way.
______
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Rating: really liked it
I devoured this beautifully written memoir in a day. At the core of his message of love, acceptance, and perseverance is Hunter’s brother, Beau, who died far too young yet made an impact as deep as a moon crater. And then there’s his father, our current President, who went through hell to help him, and did so without judgment. Biden never, ever gave up on his son. Regardless of how you feel about Biden, know that his family is his biggest achievement and his devotion to them is unbreakable, especially for Hunter.
I guarantee you will find a connection to Biden’s life as you read this memoir. Whether it’s his middle class childhood, the grief at losing his mother and infant sister in a traumatic car accident, his determination to make it on his own without the help of his father, becoming a father himself, his failed relationships, or his whirlwind romance to his now wife. It’s life. And it’s messy, confusing, awesome, and complex. He’s far from perfect, but we all are. While the stories may be different, the feelings are the same.
No one has put Hunter Biden through more pain and heartache than Hunter Biden. Even with all the attention from political opponents, his biggest enemy will always be himself. Biden’s account of his addiction to alcohol and crack cocaine is not for the faint of heart. Because my God, does our boy have a tolerance to somehow survive week-long binges. Often without sleep. Or food. There were several points when I asked myself how he was still alive or not in prison. And I say this as someone who has found people dead following an overdose, or put people in prison. Despite living an affluent lifestyle, none of that matters when your addiction leads you to the seedy, unforgiving underbelly, which it did for him and will for anyone who goes down that path. And if you are thinking of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a movie I hate, you aren’t far off from what Biden’s life was like. Unlike other memoirs I’ve read on drug addiction, this really gets into the nitty gritty of crack cocaine use. How insidious it is. How chaotic it makes life, as you stay awake for days straight. The time, money, and self-respect wasted looking for that next high. The wash, rinse, and repeat lifestyle that both confuses, exhausts, and aggravates the ones you love. And through it all, Biden shows that regardless of support, money, or the completion of the most expensive treatment programs, staying sober is hard and takes work. And it shouldn’t be ridiculed. Recovery and openness about our struggles should be encouraged so that it can be prevented in others, and serve as a reminder that all is not lost. It’s not like Biden doesn’t feel ashamed. Because it is clear he does. Why put salt on the wound?
I’m glad Biden wrote this memoir, one that needs to be told more. Our country is drunk and drugged to excess, and denying that would be to deny reality. This book is obviously not for kids. I wouldn’t even recommend teenagers read it because it has many graphic stories surrounding explicit drug use that wouldn’t be appropriate, or safe for a teen to listen to.
Warning: This memoir could possibly trigger you if you are currently struggling or in recovery. So, take breaks if you need to stop and remember the beautiful things. After all, you can’t truly appreciate all the world’s beauty unless you’ve witnessed the ugly.
Rating: really liked it
He uses his crack head whoring as an excuse for everything. I’m not bashing addicts, just this sorry excuse for a human.
Rating: really liked it
Rounded up from 4.5 stars.
In many ways,
Beautiful Things by Hunter Biden is a by-numbers addiction memoir. It contains deep reflections on the origins of Biden's alcoholism and crack addiction and descriptions of drug use, strung out behavior, and the seedy side of society that rival the best pulp fiction. Yet what makes this memoir stand apart is, obviously, the fact that its author is the only surviving son of a sitting president. I marvel not only at Hunter Biden's ability to climb out of the depths of his addiction and into sobriety but the fact that his rampant addiction was so well hidden from most of society.
The Biden family is defined by tragedy. This memoir begins with Beau Biden's death from a brain tumor in 2015--an event that triggered one of Hunter's darkest plunges into addiction--and recounts the car accident that took the lives of his biological mother and infant sister. From the start, the Biden brothers fell into prototypical roles of golden boy (Beau) and bad boy (Hunter), though their father and stepmother had nothing to do with that. (I should note that President Biden is largely confined to the periphery of this memoir, so anyone hoping to get a chance to see him in a bad or unguarded light is out of luck.) Hunter Biden is a man who just couldn't cope with life. While he idolized his brother, who was a stabilizing force in his life, sometimes even more than their father, Beau's death at such a young age was too much for Hunter to bear. This memoir chronicles his deep slide from alcohol dependent to full-blown alcoholic and occasional cocaine user to extreme crackhead.
The strength of
Beautiful Things is Hunter Biden's decision to hold nothing back. Throughout the book, I couldn't fathom how a man who had everything anyone could want, a man who was born into one of the most powerful families in the nation, could sink so low. This is man earning obscene amounts of money who hobnobs with world leaders one day then finds himself strung out in a Super 8 motel the next. This book is full of salacious details, and Biden owns his behavior. From driving to the hood to score hard (the street name for crack), to hiding out in posh LA hotels while lowlife parasites rob him blind, this is the story of an addict who does everything he can to obliterate himself.
I tried to read the book objectively. Actually, I listened to it on audiobook, and I encourage others to do the same so that they can hear the brokenness in Hunter Biden's voice. Readers will want to judge him for his many poor decisions, not the least of which is having a relationship with his brother's widow mere months after his death, and marrying his current wife a week after they met while he was coming off a crack fugue. He also glosses over fathering a baby in 2019 with a woman he barely knew, also while he was on one of his cross country benders. But again, readers shouldn't pick up
Beautiful Things to judge the author or his family. The main lesson I got from the book is that addiction is evil and insidious, and no family is immune.
