A Million Little Pieces
January 9, 2006
I admit it. All last week I was addicted to the bestselling book, A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. I also admit that the reason I picked it up is because it was selected by Oprah’s Book Club. (I love Oprah. She’s pretty much girl power incarnate.) To summarize, A Million Little Pieces is about a young man’s journey through rehab. He shows up at the clinic on the verge of death, since he’s drank, inhaled, snorted or injected nearly every drug/booze under the sun. It chronicles his true story of hitting rock bottom, and finding his own path to healing. I found Frey’s girlfriend in the book, Lilly, to be an especially profound tragic story of a great girl who was simply…unloved. Sold into prostitution by her own mother as a pre-teen, she reminded me of so many survivors who have told me their stories of constant re-victimization through their life. It all goes back to one of my mottos: You can’t fight for yourself if you don’t believe you’re worth fighting for.
Then this week it all hit the fan. Frey was called out by the Smoking Gun on how accurate his claims of criminal charges and incarceration time served. Frey has got to be the only guy ever to exaggerate to make himself seem like MORE of a criminal. Only 18 pages in the book are in question over accuracy, and Oprah rushed to Frey’s corner and defended the book. As I’m in the midst of writing my first book, I can’t really understand why Frey had to inflate things, especially when it seems his real life was adequately disastrous for a good story. Regardless of the media frenzy and some exaggerations, I still recommend you check out this book to get a glimpse of life as an addict.
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4 Responses to “A Million Little Pieces”
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Have you seen the controversy on this book> It is fiction.
I heard this book was good, so I’m glad you blogged about it! I’ll have to add it to my reading list.
I’m surprised you would admit to being an Oprah fan - you seem so anti-establishment all the time!
Just want to back you up Erin… I read this book and honestly, who cares if some of it was embellished to make it more exciting to the reader? The bottom line is - the truth is there and although some things have been altered the story is about figuring out you are in the darkest part of your life and finding the strength to come out of it… I hope all the Oprah shenanigans won’t keep people from reading this great book…