A Million Little Lies

By Devika T.

A Million Little Pieces is a memoir of addiction and recovery, written by James Frey, who records the time he spends in a Minnesota Rehabilitation Clinic at age twenty-three. At the beginning of the book, Frey checks into the Clinic with an intense addiction to alcohol and crack and soon after begins suffering symptoms, including hallucinations and nausea. In the Clinic a series of eventful events occur such as him getting in a fight with another patient or him getting a couple root canals with no anesthesia. He also makes a couple friends who are just as messed up as him and they help him through the process. He refuses to consider himself a victim and the story continues on to tell the story of his recovery.

This book is a brutal and inspiring tale which was enjoyable to read. Yet, there were some issues that were difficult for me to get past like the fact that none of the paragraphs were indented. There were no quotation marks as well. So it was a bit confusing as to where the dialogues started and where they ended. Although, I think that the intention of this was to maybe make it seem more honest (which it isn't). The author describes each scene and event with painstaking and gory details. This is something I appreciated because it made it seem more real. Something else that I liked was the fact that he wouldn't refer to himself as the victim. He saw all his loved ones as victims to him.

Though this book is an eye opener to drug and alcohol abuse much of the significant parts were fabricated. For example, when he was explaining his past and how he went to jail, he didn't really go to jail for three months, he went for a couple hours, he really didn't have his root canal done without anesthesia, etc. I think that this could pass a a fantastic novel but as a nonfiction, it failed. If you are looking for just a good read in general, I would recommend this book but I'm warning you, it is confusing. If you are looking for a genuine story, you won't find it here.