James Frey

A memoir of drug and alcohol abuse and the rehabilitation experience examines addiction and recovery through the eyes of a man who had taken his addictions to deadly extremes, describing the battle to confront the consequences of his life.

A Million Little Pieces

Patrick Book

** spoiler alert **
           It is kind of crazy that anyone actually believed this was a real, true story. It reads like a screenplay, what with the self-aggrandizing protagonist who plays by his own rules and defeats a seemingly overpowering addiction just because that's how much stronger and smarter he is than anyone else. And the lack of punctuation and random noun capitalization is infuriating. I almost couldn't read the text.

John Manoogian III

obviously the dude exaggerates, but that doesn't diminish the story.

Hannah

Woah 
One of if not the saddest book I’ve ever read

Jule

One of my favorites.
It sounds morbid to say I really enjoy reading books about drug addiction but it is what it is. 
This topic is frightening and fascinating at the same time. James Frey talks about his life story in a way which makes you wanna read this book in one sitting.

Izza

I wish this wasn't half fiction/half memoir.

I'm sad for Lilly. Poor girl.

Parker Jones

One of my favorites. Such a real and raw insight on addiction. 

Kaitlyn Schmidt

I enjoyed reading this book. It did seen a little over dramatic to me. And now seeing people say it isn't actually bothers me a bit. But overall I did enjoy reading it and I read it fairly quickly.

This book wasn't easy to read, by any means, between the detail in which he described his addiction, recovery and everything in between and the annoying use of capitol letters. But, I am glad I read this book. It really gave me insight into the life of a recovering addict. True or not, controvery aside, I certainly recommend this book.

Chelsea Breher

Ugh this tore my heart into a million little pieces. It is Frey's story of strength, recovery, addiction, struggles, and more.

Sunelle Chamberlain

An honest book about rehab from drugs and alcohol and the daily struggle that will be part of an addicts life after rehab.

Mahasin S Ameen

James Frey is a really special guy. He's so special that he spends this entire book talking about how special he is. Did I mention how special he is? No, well how about what a tough guy he is?

Ugh.

Heather Killeen

So I know there is all this controversy over the fact that there are probably things in this 'non-fiction' book that aren't true, but it actually made me think about this character and story a little deeper that I probably normally would have. At it's core, it's a story about a person/character goes through horrible things, makes terrible decisions, and tries to find redemption and a way to move forward when it seems impossible. If that's not inspiring I don't know what is. Maybe it's because I don't read a lot of non-fiction, but you don't have to read NF to find inspiring content and characters. Does it matter if all the details are true or not? I am of the opinion that it doesn't. I feel like he wants to believe the details of this book in their essence were true, so I did too. It's an interesting issue because the MC is searching for truth throughout the book; accepting his own horrible truths of his past mistakes, and desperately searching for a way to live and think about this recovery in a way that is true to him. I think what I'm trying to say is, the controversy on top of the character's own struggles through the book, really made me think about the difference between "non-fiction" and "truth" and whether or not you can have one and not the other. 

The book ends with a stubborn and heroic statement about inner strength conquering all, which I wanted to believe, but started to feel was stretch against my own definitions of truth. Still, the frank and earnest way the story is written, made me root for the characters and made the book really hard to put down. It was difficult to read at times, but I really like what it says about trying to live in a way that is true to you, even if the odds are impossible.

Andrea McGuffey

I read this years after it came out that it wasn't 100% true and I would have given it 3, maybe even 4 stars if it wasn't for the fact that I didn't care too much for the writting style. I really liked the story it's self and it wasn't the broken, one word sentances that bugged me. It was the repetativeness. It got extreamly annoying after about 20 pages. The story kept me interested though and I still finished it pretty quickly. If I could, I would give it 2 1/2 stars.

I.m. ruzz

I didn't appreciate the public dressing down Harpo gave James Frey. I didn't think it was warranted, or fair, and frankly I felt betrayed more by his cowardice--and its implications on the potential truth of his main character--when faced with the large estrogen fueled demi-god of daytime television. 

he let me down more there than he ever did in the "lie" of his book. 

What's interesting then, is that I didn't expect for any of this to impact my second reading of the novel. I wanted to return back to his world with it's choppy emotion and barely covered rage--which we now know are the day dreams of a scared little boy--but what I found was page after page of betrayal. 

One of the core tenants of his recovery is latching on to what is "true". What one can feel to be true, rather than what is said to be true, or known to be true--or in the case of AA proselytized to be true--and it is through this truth, brought in different characters throughout he finds some solid ground to stand on, and ultimately his way to a sort of recovery. 

Disregarding the obvious fact there's no such thing as recovery what I am left with is the deep sense that the very fabric of the novel unwove itself in my hands as i read through it a second time. One lie burnt through the brush of his pounding word rhythms and consumed, from the inside out, what was a touching, heartfelt and relateable story. 

Moreover, in light of this I've decided to stear clear of his works in the future (unless someone drags me to one). With all the hundreds of thousands of books out there I will never get to read before I die he just doesn't make it on the radar.

A Million Little Pieces

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