Review of “Reality Check” by Mike Sorrentino

Score: 96/100 (9.6 out of 10)

Reality Check by Mike Sorrentino is a true story about darkness, light, love, faith, rising to the top, falling from grace, hoping against all hope, and finding redemption. It's a story about getting everything you ever wanted—fame, fortune, and women—but losing everything you always needed: your health, your sanity, and the love of your life. It's a heartbreaking, compelling, and riveting story about addiction and its crushing power. It's the inspirational story about one man's conviction to bet on himself, to become stronger than addiction, to shine as bright as the stars at night, and to regain the sanity, respectability, and love he once lost and left behind.

It's a powerful testimony to God's mercy and grace—that these hands that may have taken part in a million sins can still love, hug, and hold a newborn child.

Author Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino is a household name—the star of the reality TV show “Jersey Shore” which aired on MTV for six seasons, doing some of the best numbers in the history of the channel. This book revealed things to us that we never thought we'd realize or learn just by watching the show. In the show, Mike, despite having quite an arc and great character growth, always came across as rather superficial, whiny, and arrogant. In the show, he came across as a bit of a man-child. We always knew he was charismatic and funny, but little did we realize how thoughtful, sensitive, compassionate, and loving he could truly be!

The book chronicles his experiences from childhood to fatherhood. It follows him from his young life growing up as the “black sheep” of the family with a Golden Gloves father who idolized and possibly worked for the Italian mafia. We get to hear about some of his experiences as a young male stripper, a job which he attempted to hide from his parents only to be discovered after stripping for a neighbor in one of the book's most hilarious moments. Even this troubling yet humorous part of the book shows a lot of Mike's conscience and vulnerabilities as he shows concern for the many husbands and grooms at home who aren't aware that their ladies are having a good time with his services. We then pick up with Mike's troubling life as a drug dealer, attempting to emulate the gangsters he saw on TV. We follow him through all of his close-calls with the police including one particularly fortuitous incident involving pizza.

It's in the middle of all of this that he meets the book's deuteragonist and Mike's love-interest, Lauren Elizabeth Pesce, a gorgeous blonde whom he wins over in his college math class. The relationship between Mike & Lauren is one of the most powerful and beautiful we've ever read about in our years of reading and evaluating books. The two have great chemistry. Furthermore, their relationship isn't a perfect fairy-tale coupling. In fact, it has a lot of ups, downs, twists, turns, and bumps along the way. Despite them being so close in heart and spirit, they are still so far apart both physically and emotionally for a lot of the book. Mike and Lauren are forced to part ways, sometimes for prolonged periods of time, due to many of the choices that Mike makes like his decisions to continue dealing drugs until it gets him into big trouble and to become a reality TV show star surrounded by other temptations.

We then join Mike as he achieves the superstardom that most of us know him for in “Jersey Shore.” It's jaw-dropping and inspiring how he achieved this, circumventing an ultimatum with his dad to send his modeling pictures to agencies, just to happen to catch the eye of the right one. His charisma and humor—the staples of his personality (which we'll discuss later)—combined with his now-famous abs were enough to win over the producers and make him the centerpiece of their new show.

This is one of the many great examples of Mike betting on himself, going to the extreme, and hoping against all hope. This is so inspiring to every actor and/or model who has ever sent out their pictures to agencies or auditioned for a role. Dreams do come true!

Unfortunately for Mike, dreams don't make all of your other problems go away. This is a cautionary tale.

One of those problems is Mike's admitted propensity to take things to the absolute extreme. That includes drugs like heroine, Adderrall, Valium, steroids, and more.

Addiction (and Mike's battles with it) are as big a part of this book as anything. It's something that many of us can relate to in different ways. Everyone knows what it's like to be obsessed, reliant on, or addicted to something. However, few of us take it to the extremes that Mike did. There is a scene in this book in which (if we remember correctly) the entire crew is stuck at the tarmac at the airport waiting for Mike as he desperately tries to exploit the airport doctor to give him a prescription for more opiates.

Mike describes his addictions to Adderrall (and subsequently Valium), interestingly, as his “Dark Years.”

Demonstrating some of his phenomenal eloquence, Mike describes addiction like so:

“I had recklessly and foolishly kicked in a locked door to hell and walked right through”

“My love affair was with the devil: prescription opiates”
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“A relationship with the devil”

“Since I was already experimenting with prescription pills, when the introduction with the devil was made, I willingly reached out and shook his hand.”

“Have you ever been slumped on the toilet with a trashcan between your legs while shivering and sweating at the same time? I can only hope the answer is no. I wouldn’t wish this feeling on my worst enemy.”

“All that wasted time on cocaine. I discovered opiates were my true love.”

“The devil's pellets”

“The dream turned into a nightmare.”

You can just feel the oppressive, overpowering, consuming darkness in these lines.
Again, this is a cautionary tale. Simultaneously, this is a tale that should inspire hope and optimism: it's not too late to admit you have a problem and seek help. It's going to be hard. It's going to be painful at first, but it's not impossible.

It's beautiful and powerful to see Mike pick himself out of this to become a husband, multi-time father, and now award-nominated and soon-to-be award-winning author!

Another terrific thing about this book is the writing and how it facilitates Mike's glowing charisma and humor (which includes his coy sarcasm). Here are some of our very favorite lines:

“If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.”

“I was high as giraffe balls”

“...all I had to my name was seven dollars and a six-pack.”

“I wasn’t doing the modeling anymore because honestly, the photographers were just trying to bang me”

“'...as a result of those punishments during my adolescence, I now suffer from a
rare psychological condition known as 'having respect for others.'”

"A terrible case of the 'f**k-its' infected my psyche"

“I had everything I thought I ever wanted but not what I really needed.”

“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.”

“Life doesn’t get easier; you get stronger”

“Do not seek revenge; the rotten fruits will fall by themselves”

“Obsession is the common thread in everything I do. It’s in my DNA. It was responsible for turning me into a drug addict, but now I was exploiting it for good. Nurturing that passion allowed
me to get back in peak physical shape in no time.”

All of those quotes and passages are special in their own ways.

The last one really emphasizes how our greatest perceived weakness can also be our greatest strength or superpower if used properly. Mike had an obsessive, OCD personality that contributed to his addictions, but it also made him disciplined and obsessive about his work ethic, especially when it came to fitness and the gym, becoming an inspiration to many people to work out and pursue the body of their dreams.

Some of these other quotes are things you could live by. They are things that you could get a tattoo of, that's how great they are!

One final great quote that perfectly wraps up what this book is about is:

“I didn’t get what I prayed for until I became the person that should receive it.”

This is a book about a lot of things, but most of all, it's a story about a man's redemption.

Check it out on Amazon!