Recently, I finished a book called A Million Little Pieces. This book was written by James Frey. A Million Little Pieces is actually an auto-biography written by Frey about his time in rehab trying to end his addiction to drugs and alcohol. This book has 430 pages in total. A Million Little Pieces was published in 2003 and soon became very famous. This book was put in Oprah’s Book Club in 2005. But, in 2006 there was a big controversy if most this book was true or not true. Oprah confronted Frey in 2006 and again in 2012.
A Million Little Pieces tells the story of James Frey. 23 years old at the time. It tells the story of him going through rehab. Since, the age of 10 he has been an addict. He was an alcoholic for 10 years and a crack addict for three, he also used many other drugs. He has always been an addict. His attempts to quit only last a day at most and then he goes to back to it all. James would black out about 5 times a week. His first arrest at age 13 with many more to follow. There was never anything wrong with his childhood. He had two loving parents and a loving older brother who always supported him. But, they never truly knew the condition of his addiction. James had always refused to go to rehab but finally he wakes up on a plane with his front teeth knocked out, a broken nose, a hole through his left cheek, and no recollection of what happened or how he got to where he was. His parents checked him into a rehabilitation treatment center. Frey truly did not want to be there he was scare terribly. “I’m shaking. My hands and my feet and my lips and my chest. Shaking. For any number of reasons.” (Frey,6) Throughout his journey of rehab he meets many new friends who have the same addictions and together they try to get through the obstacles of withdrawal. One day he meets lily and they instantly fall for each other. They help each other to cope with has happened to them in the past.
My friend Melissa had given it to me to read and I really liked it. I think the book truly is a journey, not just for James but for the reader too. It is a gut-wrenching tale. While reading I would cringe multiple times and tell myself to never do drugs because that could happen to a person I was surprised when I found out about the whole controversy. I had felt sorry for him while reading the book but then I found out that it could really be one big fabricated lie. I would rate this book a 7 out of 10 because even though I really enjoyed it wasn’t a book that made me go “Oh my god this book is the best book I’ve ever written!”
We talked about this book, Olivia, so I’m glad you wrote a letter-essay about it. I’m wondering if you ever looked at video clips of that Oprah interview; it was pretty interesting. It would have been really cool if you had posted a clip of that interview to this blog post; it’s fine that you didn’t; I’m just saying, in the future, to think of things like that, because that’s how we can use this format. . . . Remember, too, to elaborate as much as you can in the Reflection. Each response to one of those sentence starters should be about the length of a small paragraph. Thank you.