You may be thinking you'd like to read this book to see what all the fuss is about. Don't. First of all, even putting the "scandal" aside (and I'm sorry, but if you read this book and didn't know that 90 percent of it or more was absolute bullshit, you really need to do some work on your critical thinking skills), the writing style is embarrassing -- an overwrought, pseudo-macho mess. Second, if you buy this book, you're just inflating Frey's bank account, which is tantamount to rewarding this asshole for appalling behavior. If you want a story about addiction, read Ellen Harris's Like Being Killed instead.

This is the only book to date that I have ever deliberately destroyed after reading -- put it through the shredder at work.

Enjoyed this book many years ago, but after its fabrication as a memoir came to light, the author admitted to embellishing and altering facts.

Don't be suckered in by Oprah's fanaticism. It is a woven narrative of memory and dream from a twisted, warped drug user and alcoholic. Of course it is full of inverted realities and embellished versions of history. Its a wonder his brain can even form sentences. The fact that he not only can, but can convince the world with vivid, enchanting prose makes me believe in his ability as a writer.

Show me a writer and I will show you a liar.
Two sides to the same coin.
Anyone who disagrees with me is not a writer or is not a good liar.

Io non pensavo che un tossicodipendente alcolista potesse sopravvivere a quello a cui è sopravvissuto James Frey e che racconta in questo memoir.
Seriamente, è qualcosa che si tiene costantemente sul limite massimo della resistenza umana, ed è raccontato con un'onestà disarmante.
Se l'inizio - James che si ritrova su un aereo, senza denti, sanguinante e con un buco nella guancia - vi sembra estremo, aspettate di leggere il resto.
Bello bello.

Not exactly a descriptive writer.
Instead he likes to repeat for emphasis.
He repeats.
He loves to repeat.
He takes a phrase and reuses it multiple times.
He repeats.
With his pale green eyes.
He repeats.

If you’re into that type of prose, excellent. If you are not you may find yourself thinking “okay we get it” a lot throughout this book

I usually loathe giving one-star reviews; given I (in all likelihood) will never summon up the patience to write a book of my own, it seems just mean-spirited to trash someone's legitimate effort. Let's just say though fhat in reviewing James Frey's faux drug rehab "memoir" A Million Little Pieces, I had no such misgivings in laying waste to this utter waste of paper. The controversy surrounding the "memoir"'s veracity is irrelevant (though, quite honestly, I don't how in the world Oprah's posse fell for Frey's schlock-fest: only the most naïve reader would take Frey's [or "Frey"'s] nonsense at face value); it's just not written very well. It's not credible. It's intended to be serious; it reads like bad comedy. (The whole time I was reading it it conjured up images of the old Gong Show: Imagine, if you will, Frey reading an excerpt in front of a guest panel, which includes, say, Nipsey Russell, Soupy Sales, and Joanne Worley. He gets to the part where he is given a root canal without anesthesia. Nipsey and Joanne get up and dance a tango, mallets in hand, around the gong; Gene Gene, Unknown Comic, and Chuck Barris all waiting off stage, shaking their heads sadly...ENOUGH! screams Soupy....GONG HIM ALREADY!!!!....)

Still and all, bad writing alone won't warrant a one-star review from me...an author will usually have to go the extra mile (by offending me, getting me sick, or rendering me comatose from sheer boredom) to earn the ignominious one star distinction. Though he never quite bored me, Frey's unfettered egotism and penchant for hyperbole did make me urp up repeatedly. His (ahem, *SPOILER*, as if one could spoil what's already been spoilt) "confession" (at the end of the book to make amends) of beating a priest who he felt was making a sexual advance toward him pretty much sealed the one-star deal for me (not only for being entirely off the drug rehab topic, but for James Frey AND "James Frey" being a complete a--hole ["James" for being a homophobe, and James for showing his true colors]). At that point I felt like taking my metaphorical mallet and banging the gong repeatedly, then beating "James" (and, even, James) over the head with it.

Just awful.

I'm still not quite sure what to think of this book, even with the revelations that chunks of it were totally made up. To me, that's not its main problem. Frey's entire work is hamstrung by a half-baked stream of consciousness style that is more often annoying than compelling. Sure, I can appreciate the style when he's talking about how messed up in the head he is, but the inexplicable punctuation (he seems to capitalize words randomly) and the total avoidance of quotation marks doesn't make it artsy or authentic. It just makes it hard to read.

The book is also hopelessly melodramatic and romantic in the classical sense of the word. True love at first sight saves the day, the author befriends a mob boss with a heart of gold, and there are more addict sob stories than you can swing a crack pipe at. Really, anybody who thought that this "memoir" was 100% true needs to go into gullibility detox themselves. Stuff just doesn't line up like this in real life. Other "Oh you don't really expect me to believe this" points include:

* Getting on a plane covered in blood, in need of immediate medical attention, and unconscious. I can't even get on a plane with an oversized bag.
* Being told he can't have Novocaine (a non-addictive, local, and non-mood altering anesthetic) for a double root canal because he's an addict.
* The author's not getting thrown out of a substance abuse clinic when he freaks out and trashes a room.
* Being told that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory pegged the author's intelligence as high (the MMPI doesn't measure intelligence).
* A dramatic rescue of a fellow patient from a crack house, accompanied by clinic staff.
* One patient's getting the clinic to allow him to have a private party, complete with catered food, gambling, and the setup of a satellite TV system for the viewing of a Pay-Per-View boxing event.

I could go on, but you get the point. So the book is poorly written, melodramatic, and contrived in several places, not to mention that big parts of it are billed as real when they are obviously not. But still, I kept turning the pages until I came to the end, because it's an interesting story and I wanted to know how it came out. Frey also has some thought-provoking things to say about the nature of abuse and how he was able to deal with it --take personal responsibility for not only your problems, but for solving them. He eschews --even mocks-- the whole 12-step program, calling it the replacement of one addition (drugs) with another (the program). While I think one addiction is obviously better than the other in this example, i can kind of see what he's talking about.

But again, since the legitimacy of his whole tale is questionable, I'm not sure I'd recommend looking to him for anything more than an entertaining story.

I read this before the exaggeration debacle hit. I was amazed by the writing style -- it reminded me of the fast-pace and sparse punctuation of Kerouac's On The Road. I'm not sure how "Million Little Pieces" would read now, knowing how many half-truths are involved.

I read this book knowing that parts of the story were embellished, even though it was marketed as a memoir. So with that out of the way, I could read it as a story based on a true story.

This story details the author's rehabilitation at the age of 23 after he had spent over a decade abusing alcohol and drugs. He hits rock bottom and in desperation his family books him into a treatment facility, where he goes on a journey about what it means to be an addict and how one can deal with the addiction.

He rejects the 12 steps, and looks at overcoming addiction in a very enlightening way. I don't know much about addiction, but I found this book very interesting and I enjoyed the gritty details.

The writing style is a bit odd, with no real application of proper grammar, but it's an engaging story that kept me riveted.

I don’t have a lot of good things to say about this. First, the way us was written left me with several headaches. It was annoyingly repetitive and threw grammar right out the window. Plus, no quotation marks made it difficult for me to know when people were talking except for the times he would write “he said” “I said” over and over.
Then I had a problem with the believability of the book. Two-thirds through the novel something kept nagging me in the back of my mind that the things that were happening just didn’t seem believable. Spoiler alert, I googled after reading this “memoir” to find out he had embellished his time, substance abuse, and criminal charges to make a better story. So here we have another privileged man who could have learned to be humble from his experience, but instead used it to make money. I’m angry I even finished it to be honest.
Some good points. I did appreciate the relationship with the other patients on the unit. I feel their stories, more so than James’ were powerful ones of what addiction can do to your life. They alone are what earns this book some stars, even though they may not have even existed.

I read this book long before the scandal surrounding it came out.

At the time, while reading it, I was so overwhelmed by the story, it was an amazing story about fighting a terrible war of addiction.
I loved the story, and the writing was brilliant (even though I read a translation of it).

I wish the writer would say it is a 'Based on a real story" instead of calling it "memoirs", but still, it was an amazing read and therefore, it is staying on my 'All Time Favorite' shelf, with the 5 stars I originally gave it!

I haven’t read memoirs before, but I’m so glad I did. I loved the style this was written, as if he was in front of you speaking or in his head. I went through many feelings; from disgust to severe empathy. There was much more drama and stories than I expected from being his story in rehab. It was completely raw and you see the character development happening. It makes you thankful if you have not gone through as much as him, or inspired that you can do the same. Or a mixture of the two. You also get some closure on some of the individuals at the end of the book which was unexpected, but I totally appreciated.