A Million Little Pieces

By: James Frey

Narrated by: Oliver Wyman

Length: 10 hrs and 6 mins

Publisher's summary

By the time James Frey enters a drug and alcohol treatment facility, he has so thoroughly ravaged his body that the doctors are shocked he is still alive. Inside the clinic, he is surrounded by patients as troubled as he: a judge, a mobster, a former world-champion boxer, and a fragile former prostitute. To James, their friendship and advice seem stronger and truer than the clinic's droning dogma of How to Recover.

James refuses to consider himself a victim of anything but his own bad decisions. He insists on accepting sole accountability for the person he has been and the person he may become, which he feels runs counter to his counselor's recipes for recovery. He must fight to survive on his own terms, for reasons close to his own heart. And he must battle the ever-tempting chemical trip to oblivion.

An uncommonly genuine account of a life destroyed and reconstructed, and a provocative alternative understanding of the nature of addiction and the meaning of recovery, A Million Little Pieces marks the debut of a bold and talented literary voice.

*In January 2006, the author and publisher of this title acknowledged that a number of facts had been altered and incidents embellished.

Find out what life is like for James Frey post-rehab; make his second memoir, My Friend Leonard, your next listen.Or check out more selections from Oprah's Book Club.

©2003 James Frey (P)2003 HighBridge Company

Critic reviews

"A Million Little Pieces is this generation's most comprehensive book about addiction: a heartbreaking memoir defined by its youthful tone and poetic honesty." (Bret Easton Ellis)

Brillant!

Couldnt put this down!

Read the Smoking Gun before purchasing this book

This book wasn’t for you, but who do you think might enjoy it more?

Shame on Harpo for not researching this story!! Read the report on the Smoking Gun. Most of the touching accounts in this book are debunked in that report. So much so, that it makes you wonder what else is fictional! The major crimes, the portrail of the angry outcast, the pure and direct honesty.... systematically dismantled!

Has A Million Little Pieces turned you off from other books in this genre?

Just this author

Would you be willing to try another one of Oliver Wyman’s performances?

Yes

Don’t waste your credit!

In all my years as an Audible member, I don’t think I’ve ever regretted a purchase as much as this one. I’m forcing myself to finish it but I’m only managing it because I’ve fast forwarded through so much.

I’ve have never hated a main character as much as this one. Ever and I’ve been an avid reader since elementary school. . I’m so glad to learn that the author is a liar and made the story up because I don’t think I could sleep at night knowing there is such an entitled idiot walking around in the world.

I can’t imagine that something so poorly written would have ever been published if it had been presented as fiction. Honestly, I can’t wrap my head around it being published at all, let alone promoted by Oprah.

The performer isn’t bad. That is literally the only good thing I can find to say about this crap novel.

ETA: without the constant repeating, mundane details, and pissing contests, the “story” would probably be 2 hours tops.

A Million Little Incongruities

From its beginning with the surreal plane trip to the end, I find it impossible to believe most, if any, part of this fable is true. I plan to check many of the so-called "events" described in the book by looking into Mr. Frey's bio.. This is clearly fiction. Let's face it---being allowed on an airplane in the described state would be impossible even before 9-11. Two root canals while strapped in a dentist's chair at the onset of the rehab program. I find it impossible to believe that a local anesthetic would cause such a severe reaction that a rehab clinic couldn't allow it. And the cast of characers reads likes a bad Hollywood script. Judge, Mafiosa, Simon & Garfunkle's Boxer, the lovely little hooker, the "saved" who stay and work at the clinic.
The entire story is so preposterous that I cannot believe people would buy into it. And the blurb from Bret Easton Ellis makes me think that HE may have been the real author. It reads like one of his worst works, if we can say one is worse than another, but uses a style so imitative that one has no choice but to think that the author either copied his style or tried to update "Bright Lights..." and transpose in into an incredibly morose melodrama.
This book cries out: "Fact-checker needed."

you will die of boredom and monotony

I started listening to this book on a long trip and continued until the end only because it was the only audible.com selection on my ipod that I hadn't heard yet. I wanted to quit after 10 minutes and that feeling stayed with me through the end of the book.

If given a choice between listening to this selection again or having a root canal without novocaine on every single tooth, I'd choose the dental work in a second. The combination of the endless repetition, the laconic narration, and the mind-numbing minutiae made me grind my teeth throughout. Stay away from this one!

Should have been a novel

Frey does not let the facts interfere with his overblown story.

Awful, self-pitying

The first time through, it was on disk and I took it out and threw it in the back seat of the car. Gave it a second chance - Oprah said...- still sucked. The tone is angry and exposes a nasty man with an addiction. The man is the problem in this case, not the addiction.

Read better on the topic

It was less honest and more showy than other accounts of recovery from drugs ad alcohol. Yes, it's intense and dramatic, but also has some element who of a braggart not truly reformed by his experience.

Cheated

This would have been 5 stars, were it true. Now that the truth is out, if it's true that an addict will lie, cheat and steal for a fix, and since Mr. Frey did just that for money, his story of redemption is bogus. I'd get my book credit back from Audible, just on principle, but I like Audible too much. I wouldn't give this author one more dime.

A Million Litle Pieces

The worst book I ever have read on recovery ~ poorly writen and I would not recomend the purchase of this book ~ A lot of cursing and nothing about recoving just using.