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View Full Version : "A Million Little Pieces" - James Frey


thouragood jankins
06-10-2006, 03:05 AM
Has anybody else read this book, I'm just starting on it, got the first 20 pages done, this sounds very good, just wanted to hear some feedback of your guys opinions on it...
closeddoors
06-10-2006, 03:16 AM
I read it before all that shit with Oprah and everything. It was really good I thought. Then everyone started saying it was shit after the whole Oprah thing because a lot of it was supposedly not true. It was still a good book though in my opinion.
thouragood jankins
06-10-2006, 03:19 AM
Dude screw that not true bull shit, i know this shits true...
birdgirl73
06-10-2006, 04:48 AM
Well, he definitely played some of it up. And added some stories here and there to make it more dramatic. He's admitted that now in lots of places.

But it's still a really good read! And it's still mostly true.
Mingles
06-10-2006, 05:34 AM
Everything I've seen and heard about it says the book is mostly all exaggerations. A typical one in the book is where he describes getting busted by the cops for all sorts of violations, beaten and roughhandled by the cops, but in reality it was a minor traffic ticket. Also that the friend from the mental hospital if fabricated as well.

The guy even placed himself in a car that killed a girl saying he was there and held her as she died, when in reality, a girl was killed, but he barely knew the girl and he wasn't even around the crash site. Not trying to ruin too many book plots, but when fiction is passed off as non-fiction or truth, the facts need to be set straight.

I'll shut up now.
HazardousToking
06-10-2006, 05:34 AM
Go watch the south park episode "A Million Little Fibers" lmao


fuck that cow oprah!


BTW, "mostly true" is a pathetic term....
birdgirl73
06-10-2006, 06:04 AM
Everything I've seen and heard about it says the book is mostly all exaggerations. A typical one in the book is where he describes getting busted by the cops for all sorts of violations, beaten and roughhandled by the cops, but in reality it was a minor traffic ticket. Also that the friend from the mental hospital if fabricated as well.

The guy even placed himself in a car that killed a girl saying he was there and held her as she died, when in reality, a girl was killed, but he barely knew the girl and he wasn't even around the crash site. Not trying to ruin too many book plots, but when fiction is passed off as non-fiction or truth, the facts need to be set straight.

I'll shut up now.
Oh, sheesh. Seriously, I didn't know it was this much of it made up! I thought it was only about three little details that were fabricated. I saw him and I think it was his publisher on the news one morning trying to make it sound less bad that it was.

Hence my use of the pathetic term "mostly true."
HazardousToking
06-10-2006, 06:13 AM
either something is true


or


its not true


I guess I dont have any middle ground when it comes to truth/lies
birdgirl73
06-10-2006, 06:15 AM
I guess I was just looking at it as if some stories in the book were true and some were not. But it's certainly true that it should de-classify the book itself from the non-fiction/biography category.
Victor Lazlo
06-10-2006, 06:23 AM
My sister read it and the sequel ??My Friend Leonard?. It got all its hype from being on the Oprah Book List and it turns out most of everything he wrote was fiction.

He even tried to get ??A Million Little Pieces? published under fiction before he successfully got it published as a ??Memoir?.

Apparently Oprah backed his story at first but later found out he lied about aspect of the story and she chewed his ass out on her show.
Still my sister said it??s a good read even if its all BS.
birdgirl73
06-10-2006, 06:27 AM
I definitely thought it was a good read!
Mingles
06-10-2006, 06:29 AM
I think everyone who's read it agrees that it was a great book, but most also agree that it should have been fiction from the get go and are upset most about that. Although it was funny when Oprah basically ambushed him on the show. I guess from what I read, he had no idea she was going to go off on him.

Good stuff.
thouragood jankins
06-10-2006, 03:37 PM
hells yea.....
Victor Lazlo
06-10-2006, 08:28 PM
Well, he definitely played some of it up. And added some stories here and there to make it more dramatic. He's admitted that now in lots of places.

But it's still a really good read! And it's still mostly true.

I actually saw the Ophra segment where she grilled Frey about most of the major parts of the book. He very nervously admitted almost all of it was made up.

One example, and I have not read the book but I know it starts out where he just wakes up on a plane or something. Well none of that ever happened, he made it all up. So it??s defiantly not "mostly true" but still a good read I guess.
sophiastarchild
06-10-2006, 09:10 PM
James Frey is a drama queen. Yes, some of it was rather riveting. But I kind of knew from the beginning something was up...because no way would they let a drugged up guy who was all injured and bleeding travel on a plane. I mean, have you ever seen Airline? On that show, you have two beers and the morality police inform you that you cannot take your flight...
sophiastarchild
06-10-2006, 09:12 PM
Oh...and Frey's refusal to use quotation marks drives me totally nuts. I am a writer, and I wanted to take a red pen and edit the book so badly...I found it highly irritating.
birdgirl73
06-11-2006, 01:42 AM
The quotation mark thing drove me nuts, too. I find myself wanting to fix that in other books, too. It's stylish.

What sorta stuff do you write, Sophia? Nice to talk with another writer on board here.

Have you ever read any of Augusten Burroughs' books? He's wickedly funny. And also writes about addiction adventures.