A Review of 'A Million Little Pieces' by James Frey

"At the age of 23, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth knocked out, his nose broken, and a hole through his cheek.  He had no idea where the plane was headed nor any recollection of the past two weeks.  An alcoholic for ten years and a crack addict for three, he checked into a treatment facility shortly after landing.  There he was told he could either stop using or die before he reached age 24.  This is Frey's acclaimed account of his six weeks in rehab."

It took about a year and a half to start and finish this book, but I have finally done it.

It took me such a long time to finish this because of the content, mostly.  I have never cringed so much, been so uncomfortable, and yet been so on-board with the emotional roller coaster that James Frey takes his readers on.

The writing style was very interesting.  A lot of repetition, no quotation marks, but a lot of line breaks to make up for it and contribute to clarity.  This is essentially a 432-paged prose poem.  The writing style makes this a dense read as well as the content of the book.

Aside from style, this was such an amazing, inspiring, and in some ways a completely unbelievable read.  James was put into a six week rehab program and he ignored the rules a lot, didn't care for the twelve step AA program and made sure people knew, and just generally marched to the beat of his own drum.  Yet, he emerged from the program a completely changed guy.  Six weeks to go from F-up to roughly a put-back-together person.  It seems nearly impossible that that much change can happen in six weeks.

If you're looking for a book about a miraculous recovery, one that takes you through just about every step of recovery as he experiences it, this is a book for you.  Especially if you don't mind excessive swearing and little punctuation.

I give 'A Million Little Pieces':

Thanks for Reading!

--Jude