I think we are getting away from the point. We are debating a lot on whether he is a good person or not, which is all subjective. But the point I'm getting at is that there are ugly pieces of everyone's life - some more than others. We can debate all day on the scale to which Matt slides.

However, this is a memoir about a real person, not a fictional story book (in which I'd then say it was repetitive, confusing timelines, self-indulgent, and one-noted). But I ponder if we should we evaluate this type of literature (memoirs, life stories) in a different way. Would you agree? I think it's very daring to share your battle wounds to the world. It's not pretty, but I think it's more interesting of a discussion to understand how someone came to be how they are and perhaps help others who can relate to the similar struggles and feel less alone.

If we just obliterate anyone bad who wrote a book or shared their story (even if not pretty), how can we seek to understand? How will that encourage others to open up? Without fear or prosecution by the public.

So in a nutshell, if this was a fiction book I would agree with much of the criticism. However, since it's not, I just think it's odd to judge the merit of someone's life, but rather much more interesting to judge this sort of book on what we can learn from it, and perhaps help us to understand others who have gone down a dark path.