Breaking Good: A Memoir

An evocative, insightful, and unflinchingly raw odyssey of addiction, recovery, and the criminal underworld of Waikiki.

When the drug habit Nikki thought she’d kicked ends her brief stint at the University of Hawaii, she starts flipping her stash to make ends meet. Before she knows it, she’s an up-and-coming player in Waikiki’s drug trade, the new “it girl” on the scene who can always get you what you need to keep the party going.

But every party winds down eventually, and Nikki soon finds herself face to face with the consequences, her life threatened by her “colleagues” and her freedom threatened by law enforcement. With nowhere left to run, her past finally catches up with her, forcing her to confront the trauma that set her down this road so many years ago.

From the suburbs of New Jersey to Hawaii’s tropical shores and back again, Breaking Good takes a frank, insightful, and darkly funny look at addiction, the trauma at its core, and the long, winding road to healing and redemption.