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Matthew Perry
Matthew Perry was an American-Canadian actor and author. On November 1, 2022, he published Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, a memoir released by Macmillan Publishers (Headline in the UK) with a foreword by Lisa Kudrow, in which he details his struggles with alcoholism and painkiller dependency. Perry passed away on October 28, 2023, a year after the memoir's release.
Biographical details sourced from Wikipedia and The Guardian.
On LuvemBooks, we've reviewed Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing.
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Books ReviewedMatthew Perry books in order
1 books; 1 reviewed on LuvemBooks. Dates and covers from Amazon.
2022Our review →
Ask LuvemBooks about Matthew Perry
Matthew Perry is represented on LuvemBooks by one reviewed title: his memoir Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, in which he writes with disarming candour about decades of addiction, tracing his dependency on alcohol and painkillers alongside his rise to fame as Chandler Bing. Drawing an Amazon aggregate reader rating of 4.5 out of 5 from over 62,000 ratings, the book is notable for how Perry balances self-deprecating wit with unflinching accounts of hospitalisation and relapse — a combination that sets it apart from the typical celebrity memoir.
- Where should I start?
- Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing is Perry's only book and the natural — and only — starting point. It works equally well whether you come to it as a Friends fan curious about the man behind Chandler, or as a reader drawn to addiction memoirs, since Perry structures the book to serve both audiences without feeling like it is pandering to either.
- What's their writing style?
- Perry writes in a voice that is immediately recognisable as his own: conversational, self-deprecating, and punctuated by the kind of dark one-liners that made Chandler Bing iconic. But beneath the wit, the memoir is structurally serious — Perry does not shy away from clinical detail about withdrawal, hospitalisation, and the repetitive nature of relapse, giving the book a confessional weight that outlasts the jokes. The result is a style that disarms the reader with humour before delivering something genuinely difficult to read.
- Books we've reviewed
- We have reviewed one book by Matthew Perry on LuvemBooks: Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing (2022), a memoir about his decades-long battle with addiction that carries an Amazon aggregate reader rating of 4.5 out of 5 from over 62,000 ratings — a score that reflects both its broad audience and the strength of its reception.
- What genre do they write?
- Matthew Perry wrote in the memoir genre. Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing sits specifically within the addiction memoir sub-genre — a first-person account of lived experience with substance dependency — though it also functions as a celebrity memoir given Perry's fame as one of the leads of Friends. It is not fiction, and Perry published no other genre of writing during his lifetime.
- What should I read after this?
- Readers who responded to the addiction thread in Perry's memoir often gravitate toward Beautiful Boy by David Sheff or Tweak by Nic Sheff for a father-and-son perspective on methamphetamine dependency, or toward Dry by Augusten Burroughs for another addiction memoir written with a dark, comedic voice. For the celebrity memoir angle, Open by Andre Agassi is widely regarded as one of the most honest sports memoirs ever written and shares Perry's willingness to expose personal failure without self-pity.
Who is Matthew Perry?
Where should I start?
What's their writing style?
Books we've reviewed
What genre do they write?
What should I read after this?
Who is Matthew Perry?
Matthew Perry was an American-Canadian actor best known for playing Chandler Bing on the NBC sitcom Friends, which ran from 1994 to 2004. In November 2022 he published his memoir, Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, detailing his long struggle with alcoholism and painkiller dependency with a foreword by co-star Lisa Kudrow. Perry passed away on October 28, 2023, just under a year after the memoir's release, making the book his only published work and a significant final statement about his life.
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