Rating: 
Summary: I was hooked by the fifth page
Review: After reading the first five to ten pages, you want to put the book down, it's not for you. Much of the book is raw, ugly and many sections are extremely hard to read. But the story itself is raw, ugly, and hard to deal with. While reading this book, I alternately felt numb from the horrors he described and profoundly disturbed at how addiction had ravaged the humanity of him and many of his fellow patients. Frey is extremely honest in this memoir, and although you may not always like him, you will certainly respect him by the end.
Rating:
Summary: For those who want to know the real deal
Review: My husband is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. I read this book to gain an understanding about what goes those an addicts mind and how a substance can take control one's life. James Frey, did NOT disappoint me. With his harsh, abrasive and explicit words, describes the Hell with great detail, about living as an addict. He takes you through his self-inflicted life, where his unexplained fury torments him enough to make him want to suppress it with any substance he can get a hold of starting at the age of 10. He lets you know that there is no one to blame in his case which fuels his self-hatred keeping him from seeking any means to get well. When he enters rehab at the start of the book, his description of each character as they enter his life, is given in the purest of forms. Even though Mr. Frey professes not to follow AA, he in fact twists the philosophies of AA to fit his needs. Instead of a random group of AA members that meet at a pre-set time, he shares stories nad his heart with a group of addicts of his choosing, without scheduling restrictions, and structure. His beliefs are stated simply, but with profound implications. I admire his bravery to bare all-the bad, ugly, gross, disturbing, horrifying, and pathitic existance a hard-core addict endures just to have a taste of the next high. As he put it, there is nothing heroic, or glamous about ANY type of addiction. The true face of addition is exposed, and if you really want to know the "real deal", you'll read this book and understand, there are no easy answers, no short-cuts, no promises outside of making a conscious decision about staying sober, one moment at a time, inorder to stay alive.
Rating: 
Summary: Unflinching reflection on addiction and recovery.
Review: James Frey is a unique voice with 'Million Little Pieces', and his unflinching look at addiction and recovery is both refreshing and intriguing. On one hand, Frey is a cocky guy who is very stubborn and unlikable. On the other hand, it is that unwavering stubbornness that probably saved his life in the end. I found his reflections on the 12-step program and the "higher power" to be a very refreshing take on the standard addiction/recovery story. Sure, we've all probably read several stories of drug/alcohol addiction and self-destruction that give way to recovery and ultimately redemption...but rarely have we ever heard it told in a voice like Frey's. This book hooked me early on with it's gritty and sometimes brutal dialog, and kept me coming back for more until I finished it over the course of a weekend. Highly recommended for anybody that may be remotely interested in this subject matter, or who may know someone that is involved in the world of addiction/recovery.
Rating:
Summary: sobering....
Review: James Frey is an original. His prose is spartan, yet he manages to convey the nerve-searing hell of his recovery process in an almost Haiku style. He begins his journey from the posturing stance of an addict at rope's end. His real persona is agonizingly revealed as each of his masks are torn from his face and subsequently, his soul. In the beginning chapters, Frey holds tight to his dreams of getting high. Since the age of 10 his mind has been in altered states. His rage was the guiding beacon to alcohol, drugs and trouble. There was always something to blame for his excess.
Not him, the rage controlled his actions. The rage had to be extinguished in whatever manner possible. The rage became his reason for not being. James was not a nice guy. Yet I found myself liking him, his eventual honesty and his determination to take the path less travelled. Whatever else can be said about James Frey, he stuck to his convictions. Admirable. This memoir of a stay in a wintery Minnesota rehab is a page turner. There is one scene in a dentist's office that is forever burned into my psyche. I still cringe. His descriptions of his fellow patients are raw and real. Using a verbal scalpel, James
filets everyone into raw meat including himself. Then he goes one step further and reveals the person behind the pretense. He writes without apology or frosting. He writes from the soul. I will remember him.
Rating:
Summary: Gruesome journey through hell and back
Review: This is an extraordinary story: a young man suicidally addicted to drugs/alcohol, consumed by rage and psychic pain, finds the will to survive and the power to conquer his addiction without the 12-step program and its manipulative insistence on believing in a "higher power of your own understanding". At the end of the book we find out about what happened to all the people we had come to know, and those who have not read the book and intend to read it should read here no further. Frey survives, as do two other strugglers. What they have in common is their wealth, their elevated position in life, or the wealth that is behind them, not their commitment to the twelve steps. All the others, those who relapsed after leaving the program, are poor, working class, or modest middle class. Their lives are destroyed. Frey's trip through the rehabilitation program is harrowing: major anesthesia-free dental work, other patients' brutality and threats, despair, his continuing rage and psychic torment. The counselors warn him that only through the 12-step program can anyone have a chance of staying off substances, but through tremendous innate personal strength, the support and professionalism of some of the staff, and the love of his supportive if dysfunctional family, he manages to do so. The writing is poetic, the characters deeply-drawn, the story gripping and believable, even though some circumstances are so gruesome or horrific they are beyond the experience of all but the most desperate. The story of Frey's Orpheus-like journey through hell makes a deep mark on one's awareness of the depths of human despair and the potential for heroism.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: this by far one of the best books that I have read. I was taken into the book, I wasn't just sitting there looking at pages. It made me feel.
Rating: 
Summary: Promising, but still ho-hum
Review: James Frey's memoir of addiction gets off to a harrowing start and manages to sustain the momentum through the first half. It is stark, bold, and wholly unsentimental. But then things start to slide. James' parents visit him at the clinic where the reader is treated to page after page of sentimentalized touchy-feely "you don't understand my feelings" psychobabble that reads like an Afterschool Special, albeit with an edge. Things pick up again toward the end but by this time the shock of the new has worn off and it's become just another memoir by just another former addict.
Rating:
Summary: The best writing on addiction ever!
Review: It is both interesting and dissappointing to read some of the reviews of this book. Some people just dont get it. Yeah, there are part of Frey's story that seem a bit embelished or far fetched, but who cares? This is the first book on addiction I have read that clearly explained what it feels like to be an addict. The power and emotion of Frey's story is unmatched. His writing style reminds me a bit of James Ellroy, which can be a bit clippy and hard to follow at times, but again, who cares? Once I got into this book, I could not put it down. It is a great story, like "sleepers", which people with too much time on their hands had to question as well. And anyway, how do any of us know what really happened. This is a great book, and I think anyone that wants to learn more about the frailty of the human mind will find this book life changing. For those of you that have to question everything, stick to fiction, where you won't have to worry about the validity of the story.
Rating:
Summary: a story well told
Review: An incredible story of the resilliancy of the human spirit.
Rating:
Summary: A Million little pieces
Review: If you've ever had an addiction, a life threatening addiction, and still struggle with how to live, without constant AA or Narcotics Anonymous Meetings, read this book. AA and NA meetings do save some lives and more importantly, they can keep addicts from inflicting pain on their loved ones. The pain of wondering, will it happen again today? Will my addicted loved one survive? How long can I continue to stand by helpless and watch them kill themselves? The meetings do give some addicts a place to go, with people who understand them, rather than, heading for the nearest bottle shop or drug dealer, when a crisis occurs. However, I am not a meetings person and agree with James. Meetings bring me down and depress me. I am more than an alcoholic and addict and I don't want to identify myself, as just an alcoholic. I want to think of myself as more complete and with other positive things going for me. Well done James. A perfect account, emotionally and mentally of the state of mind and heart, of an addict. It is, a decision. I cried reading that book. I have not cried for 20 years. It was cathartic for me and opened up the hard shell I've put around myself, to keep me sober for 18 years of almost total sobriety.
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