READING Love Junkie is like watching someone washing their trashy lingerie in public.

It's impossible not to stare, although you know it's wrong to be so fascinated by such an intimate glimpse into someone's life.

Los Angeles-based Resnick piles on the misery in this honest confessional description of disturbing sexual encounters, begging emails to lovers and a miserable childhood spent as the daughter of an alcoholic, sex-obsessed single mother.

She is a self-confessed exhibitionist, and at times you sense that she's revelling in the shock factor of her prose.

But you can easily sympathise with her addiction to love – and the wrong kind of men – when she writes about her mother's death at 14, and the families she had to stay with, because her father's new wife was jealous of their relationship.

There is real emotion in the tender passages about her parents; a refreshing change from the cringe-worthy emails.

The time split narrative makes the book a real page-turner, even if it's just to see what horrendous situation will happen next, or because you're hoping for a glimpse of happy ever after.