"Elliott may be writing under the influence, but it's the influence of genius."

- Vanity Fair

"Superb"

- Time Out New York (five stars, highest rating)

"With astute insights into anger, despair, drug use, sadomasochism, and the elusiveness of love and justice, Elliott is a poet of pain."

- Booklist (starred review)

"A remarkable achievement."

- Bookslut

"Despite the luridness of the subject matter, the author creates a refined, beautiful work of art. His themes-seemingly crime, murder, drugs and sadomasochistic sex-actually encapsulate the nature of truth, self, love and memory, and the limits of art to get at them all. Deserves a place on the shelf next to such classics of uninhibited American introspection as On the Road and A Fan's Notes."

- Kirkus (starred review)

"Armed with professional skills he has developed while navigating the crazy minefield of his life, Elliott reports and speculates on a true crime story, all the while semiconsciously framing that story as a narrative about his father's antagonism, his own culpability, and the unknowable degree to which their brutal dynamic has formed and deformed his life. This process is the end of the book and the beginning of Elliott's transformation. And though it sidesteps traditional memoir elements of revelation, redemption, and closure, it affords both reader and author something much more valuable: a transcendent inquiry into the nature of the self."

- The Seattle Stranger

"'The Adderall Diaries' is neither a Kerouac-like brag, nor an Oprah-ready record of suffering and recovery. Rather, it is its own weird hybrid, a painfully honest and meticulously crafted memoir wrapped around a true-crime story that gets to the very essence of its time and place."

- The Los Angeles Times

"'The Adderall Diaries' should be a lurid work. Among its unsettling elements are the trial of a computer programmer suspected of murdering his Russian wife and a confession by the programmer's best friend that he killed several people. The author's father claimed to have shot a man -- something Elliott couldn't corroborate or disprove. The memoir also covers memories of a wretched childhood, drug use and Elliott's addiction to masochistic sex. Yet this is no potboiler, but a serious literary work designed to make you see the world as you've never quite seen it before. The intensity of Elliott's often beautiful prose evokes the effects of Adderall, the attention deficit medication. Yet the book shows a concern for order: Each chapter begins with a summary of what's to follow, reminiscent of the headings in Victorian novels, and there are even several footnotes. Nonetheless, beneath these devices throbs an all-pervasive sense of the elusiveness of truth. Memories deceive, and almost everyone in this book -- including the author -- is a fantasist."

- The Washington Post

"Where does it fit? What does Elliott's Adderall habit have to do with Reiser's murderous rage? What's the connection between Elliott's sadomasochistic sexual proclivities and Nina Reiser's death? Not much, really. And therein lies the complex genius of the book... If you're the type of reader who always wants to know what to expect, Stephen Elliott isn't your guy. But if you can take your literary sharp turns without hitting the brakes - or knowing exactly where you'll end up - you won't find a more provocative, masterful, thrilling ride than this."

- The San Francisco Chronicle

"The book's most affecting passages are unlike anything being written today. They manage to fuse the radical subjectivity of the individual struggling to understand himself with a tender bafflement at the psychological evasions of modern life in America."

- The Boston Globe

"The Adderall Diaries, Elliott's most autobiographical work yet, is ambitious and emotional and brilliantly orchestrated, an embroidery of memoir and true-crime reportage that's so stunning that I can't imagine Elliott writing about the above-mentioned murder case without also confronting his past (or vice versa)."

- Fanzine

"The Adderall Diaries, a brutally open-eyed memoir about growing up surrounded by violence, clad in the scattered threads of Capote-style crime reporting, is a strange beautiful thing."

- The Brooklyn Rail

"It opens with this line: "My father may have killed a man," then continues for 208 taut, high-wire, brilliant pages... I'm still not sure how he did it. With candor so raw it makes me never want to use "fiercely honest" to describe another writer's work. With a style of writing so unaffected and artless that at times you feel like you're reading someone's journal. You read this and you think, This is the truth."

- The Las Vegas Weekly