Let me start by saying that the primary reason I decided to read this book now was that I got it for free. Not that I wasn't curious; I've got a definite weakness for angst and drugs and devastation and redemption. I mean, shit like this is ludicrously popular because it like twangs something in us, right? It accesses some kind of emotional core or whatever, some place in us that has struggled too, that wants to see suffering end and the sun shimmer out from behind the clouds and a reward come to those who have kicked and screamed and fought to earn it. Right? Anyway: so there, I admit it, I've always assumed I would probably read this book eventually, and would probably even like it.

Before I get any further, though, I'd like to do a bit of ranting about the whole sordid, shitty scandal. First of all: jesus fuck, how stupid was all that?? I was working at Random House when it was going down; I remember that any of us who wanted to could go to the conference rooms where they were showing the Oprah episode where Nan Talese went on the show so the two of them could get all indignant and talk about how James Frey betrayed them and the American people and bunnies and apple pie. I stayed at my desk, because it was too stupid to possibly think about. It's a memoir, people, and memoirs are fucking subjective. Furthermore, it's a memoir of the first few weeks of convalescence after ten years of nightly blackouts due to extreme consumption of insane amounts of drugs and alcohol. Is it really that surprising that Frey forgot or fucked up some details? And even furthermore, it's a story, it's a book, people, and Frey had the sense to be a writer, to lay a narrative arc over things, to make beginning-middle-end sections, to insert snappy dialogue where it was probably a lot less snappy, to make people maybe just a little bit smarter and more interesting than maybe they really were. This is not wrong. The reason why books aren't explicitly true to life is because life is boring sometimes, and when you write a book or a movie or a comedy act, you can gloss over the inconsequential things and capitalize on the interesting bits.

It was ludicrous how Random House fell all over themselves to work both sides of the issue ("You guys think he's still relevant and important? Oh, then we of course stand by our authors. But wait, you guys over there think he's a fuckup and a liar? Well we were lied to too! Poor us! Please don't stop buying our books!"). Puke and puke. I also have a lot of anger about Oprah (much of which well-meaning friends have tried to get me to get over, but no fucking thank you), and I think she too was just exclusively concerned with protecting her brand and her market share, and that everybody scapegoated Frey in an unforgivable way. But then, of course, there's this: scandals sell some fucking books. Sure, Frey was humiliated on TV and throughout the media, but that motherfucker also made a shit-ton of money. Random House and Oprah kind of had to play both sides of the issue, because both sides were going to buy, buy, buy. Remember that other Oprah mini-scandal with Jonathan Franzen, how she put him on her book club and he said no thanks? Well, let me be clear: the only Oprah books I've ever read, and probably ever will read, are Franzen's and Frey's. Oprah is so powerful that even the people who hate her make her money and are probably good for her overall. That's fucking scary.

Anyway, enough of that; on to the book itself. Will anyone be surprised by this point to hear that I didn't hate it? Well, I didn't. In fact, I liked it a good deal. There were passages where I was pretty damn riveted, honestly, when I couldn't wait until my next cigarette break so I could read some more. Like I said, it's tough to beat the kind of suffering and struggle and survival that's on display here. I've had friends in NA and AA, and many more who maybe should have been; I'm a good audience for this kind of thing. Moreover, though (smoking aside) I've never been an addict myself, I quietly agree with a lot of Frey's ideas (as presented here, that is) about the futility of the Twelve Steps, and how especially the "higher power" bit, along with things like "genetically predisposed" and "childhood abuse" and such like, could be looked at as just tidy ways of disavowing responsibility for one's own mistakes. I mean, for fuck's sake, I smoke a lot of cigarettes, and though yes, I do think I have a bit of an addictive personality, and sure, maybe because my parents didn't take away my bottle early enough I have an oral fixation, and yup, many of my relatives were heavy smokers, but still: every single time I light a cigarette, I am making a decision to do so. Every. Single. Time. I could very certainly not do it, and the times I've quit I've done just that. I am of course in no way saying that heroin is easy to kick, or that physical addiction is as simple to overcome as not striking that match. I am saying, though, that I agree with a lot of the things Frey says here. That's all.

And look: there's no doubt that Frey has crafted himself (or: his "self") into a serious bad-boy hero in this book. I'm sure that he is not nearly as smart and clever and recalcitrant and charismatic and nails-tough as he paints himself to be herein. But see above, okay? It's a fucking memoir. Does anyone for one second believe that any memoirist can remember conversations, word for word, from years ago? Of course not. You remember the general idea, maybe a phrase here or there, and you recreate. Recreate. A memoir is a creative process just like fiction is. Sure, there were times during this book when I rolled my eyes and thought "well isn't that tidy," or "I'm really sure he said that," but that's fine. I am a thinking human being, and I am going to bring my own thoughts and feelings and opinions to what I read, and I am going to dole out my respect and judgement accordingly.

The bottom line, for me, goes back to something I always say about memoirs. One of the quotes on my favorite memoir ever, n  Another Bullshit Night in Suck Cityn, says something like "finally, a person whose life is deserving of a memoir has the skills to write one." Whether Frey really had a double root canal with no anesthetic, whether he commanded the adulation and respect of grizzled mobsters in rehab, whether he puked for ten days straight and cursed out all the therapists and is a perfect fighter and is actually afraid of nothing — that is all irrelevant, or at least secondary. What matters is that Frey has not only gone through some major major shit and lived to tell about it, he is capable of telling about it in a way that is generally compelling and often fascinating. Sure, he made a lot of really weird style choices (like random capitalizations and no indented paragraphs), which I found stupid and distracting. Sure, his story is often overdramatized and too pat. Sure, he paints himself as a pitch-perfect brilliant bad-boy-rebel anti-hero. But fuck. This is still a pretty great book, and I'm really glad I read it.

Gary's right about this dude. He's a bigger pumpkin fucker than Steinbeck.

DNF ~ page 110

I’m so, SO sad I didn’t like this... I thought I would really enjoyed it since the sequel, My Friend Leonard, is one of my favourite books of all time but I really didn’t.

I’ve never been so bored and annoyed with a character in my life... there is no way I’m going to put myself through another 300 + pages of this. Fell asleep multiple times while reading this and it literally took me 9 days to bring myself to read 110 pages which is crazy! Good riddance

Original Review - 2007 edited slightly (mostly for grammar) in 2011.

I got into a discussion about this book yesterday with some fellow goodreads friends and thought I should add my two cents here. I must start, as is customary with this one, by saying I read the book after it was picked to be in Oprah's book club, but before the scandal occurred.

I enjoyed the book. I attempted to rate it based on the way I felt upon completing it, and without the perspective I now have which is likely affected by the scandal.

When I finished the book, I was exhausted and emotionally drained. This was one of the first recovery books I read. I found the author's writing style to be unique, brisk, and concise in ways I had not previously experienced. Much of this had to do with the nature of the sentences, and paragraphs, and what the pages looked like.

I realize in retrospect that much of the book was made up, but it did seem to be a novel/story that helped other addicts, which leads me to believe the fictionalized events were not necessarily unique and outlandish. I believe one of the reasons I (or the global "we") read books or listen to music is because those people that work/create in those mediums are able to put to words feelings and emotions that "we" all feel, but sometimes can not articulate. The author of A Million Little Pieces made me feel something, and, that, is why I gave it 4 stars.

"A Million Little Pieces" is James Frey's recollection of his days in a rehabilitation center. He woke up on a plane not remembering anything and his parents decided to admit him to a program called the Twelve Steps. He described everything from surgery to landscape graphically, often in horrific details. The story is told in the first person perspective. I believe the author did this on purpose to put forward his point of view but sometimes there are fallacies in his line of reasoning.

James Frey uses short sentences and repeat certain phrases to emphasize what he says. It's like staccato in music. Short, brief and repetitive. Sometimes the sentences are random and run over another. It is indistinguishable where one sentence ends and another begins because the lack of punctuations. However, that way the readers are able to follow the author's rapid and unsystematic train of thought.

I didn't know anything about the controversy over "A Million Little Pieces." I knew about it after I started reading the book and I don't understand why people make such a fuss about the book being fiction or non-fiction. As far as I'm concerned James Frey has a story to tell and the book was written based on the his experience and memory, regardless the objective truth of his memory. I know how fickle human memory is. Sometimes you remember things not as they were but as it were to be, distort it as you want it to be.

Despite the embellishment, glorification, and controversy over the book, I think James Frey did a great job telling the life he had as he remembers it. I don't see anything wrong with the way he tells the story. He is writing a novel, not a term paper or a thesis. As Arthur Golden put it in "Memoirs of A Geisha," a memoir is different from a biography. So there is bound to be distortion because it is written as the author remembers it, not as how another person might objectively observe it as in a biography.

I found this book, a long depressing read, Not my cup of tea.

I just can't describe what I felt after reading the book!! My emotions are missed up!!
Am going to write the rest of my review later on

I was so captivated by this book. For the first 100 pages or so, the narrator has his front four teeth knocked out and I kept having the sensation of no front teeth either! I kept attempting to run my tounge along my barren gums and was "surprised" to find my teeth there instead. It was a completely strange experience, but I mention it just to illustrate how this book immediately transported me to another time and place. Although there were parts where I felt he was too repetitive (no more vomiting details, please!), overall the effect was phenomenal.

I knew about the controversy over the difference between 'memoir' versus 'fiction-based-on-reality' that James Frey sparked with this book, and it was actually part of the reason that I was intrigued enough to buy it and read it myself. I read his forward first (along with a note from the publisher, both added to new editions to respond to the controversy) and was in agreement with him. A memoir is allowed to be somewhat subjective as it is a person's personal recounting of their life and is open to their interpretations and potentially faulty memory. What counts is the sum total of the story.

As I said before, I was completely taken by the book while reading it. Knowing that he "embellished a little bit here and a little bit there" I was frequently curious if it was this part that he altered, or was it this experience that he enhanced, or what details about this person were changed, or did this episode really happen exactly like this? But as I was under the impression that it was only slightly tweaked and just minor details rearranged, it didn't affect my love of the book. I was just smitten.

So then when I breathlessly finished the book and took to the internet to do a little research, I was so disappointed to learn that it was much more than minor details he changed. And I surprised myself by how much it upset me. I had thought that Oprah was over-reacting and being righteous and a stickler for inconsequential academic rules. But now I understand. I was willing to allow a bit of creative freedom on Frey's part, but when it seemed that there was more fabrication than truth, I felt lied to and conned to a certain extent.

But that doesn't change the fact that it was a spectacular read. Labeling it fiction or non-fiction doesn't make the story any less compelling.

If I could rate this lower I would. I couldn't finish it. I got less than half way and I couldn't take it anymore.

I don't care about the Oprah fiasco. I didn't read it because it was on her reads list. I only read what sounds interesting to me. Except in this case. A friend wanted me to read it so I did. Well, as much as I could anyway. I was irritated from the get go by the formatting. There was no quotation marks despite all the dialogue.

Things were written like this.
All the time.
This was the dialogue format.
It was annoying as fuck.
And if itty bitty sentences weren't used then they were constant runs on that didn't even have an commas or anything and there was so much repeating repeating repeating repeating repeating repeating of a few words.

My dog likes to get in the way when I'm on my laptop. He likes to type to people and I kid you not, my dog does better punctuation than this guy.

This guy... I didn't read the book as non-fiction. I just read it as a book. I let the writer build the world and I went along for the ride. But the ride was utter bullshit. The characters were horrible. And not in the "he's a bad person" sort of way. I've come across a lot of purely villainous characters in the past. But they at least were well written.

His rebellion against the twelve step program wasn't brave and ballsy as he tried to make it out to be. Honestly, it was just annoying. And I can't count how many times he went off about one more drink would kill him, etc. And I don't give a damn if this is "based off a true story" or whatever. I wished the guy would just take that drink. I wanted him to drink so he would die and never open his mouth again.

I forced myself to get half way through this book. Then I thought about my huge TBR list and how it's so full of books I'm excited to read. Life's just too short to waste on books you hate, so I closed it and I'm never cracking it open again. I'm just thankful I borrowed it and didn't waste money on it.

I don't know how to shelve this book. Non-fiction? Nope. Fiction? Kinda. Memoir? Sort of.

This book is one of the greatest scandals in the literary world. A memoir that makes it big on Oprah only to discover portions were made up and exaggerated. Add in a live, televised confrontation between the author and Oprah, and the book's dramatic content pales in comparison to the drama it caused in the media.

For those interested, here's an NYT article on the scandal: Author is Kicked Out of Oprah Winfrey's Book Club

Full review to come.

it should be a law to put quotations around dialogue

Leave out the Oprah fiasco for a moment, and think about the book on it's merits (however dubious they may be). Is it well written? Does it ring true (different to actual, factual legitimacy, I'm referring more to an air of authenticity that ALL good books have, fiction or non)? Are the characters realistic, living in situations that are not, say, the cliched, onanistic daydreams of a *cough* frustrated screenwriter? Is the protagonist, even in the tiniest way, a sympathetic character?

The answer is no. To all of the above. So WHY did people kiss his arse when it came out and treat him like he was some kind of not only recovery messiah, but LITERARY messiah as well? The fact that he made the lot up and Oprah slapped him on the wrist is secondary to me really. He's a terrible writer and his book sucks. I don't care if it's true or not.