About this title: A 2005 selection for Oprah's Book Club, this addiction memoir opens with the author's awakening on an airplane with a broken nose, a hole in his cheek, and four missing teeth--and no knowledge of how he received those injuries or, indeed, of how he got on the plane or where he's going. James Frey writes candidly about his monumental problems with drugs and alcohol, his terrifying experiences, and his relationships with the fellow-addicts he encountered over six weeks of detox at a Minnesota clinic. One of his themes is a refusal to believe in the "higher power" that so many recovery programs ...
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Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: John Murray
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780719561023ISBN:0719561027
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Mainstream Publishing
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780719567001ISBN:0719567009
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: John Murray
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780719561023ISBN:0719561027
Description: Good. Our aim is to create value for our customers through the provision of low cost, affordable products and an overall satisfying buying experience. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: John Murray
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9780719561023ISBN:0719561027
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: John Murray Publishers Ltd
Date Published: 2003
ISBN-13:9780719561016ISBN:0719561019
Description: Good. **SHIPPED FROM UK** We believe you will be completely satisfied with our quick and reliable service. All orders are dispatched as swiftly as possible! Buy with confidence! read more
Binding: Trade paperback
Publisher: Anchor Books
Date Published: 2005
ISBN-13:9780307276902ISBN:0307276902
Description: Good. No dust jacket as issued. Solid book with clean pages, book shows minor edge wear, front cover has curling on lower edge. Trade paperback (US). Glued binding. 430 p. Oprah's Book Club (Paperback). Audience: General/trade. read more
"A psychologist friend suggested I read this book as I was fighting some personal demons at the time. Upon receipt of the book, I literally devoured it at one long sitting. I found myself stunned and needed a couple of days to think. I then read the book again.
This is NOT a self help book but it is a book which may help you to sort out a lot of issues.
I admire James Frey so much for his refusal to accept codified solutions to complex issues be they from religious or therapeutic sources. He faces up to the fact that he is an addict and a criminal and that he is responsible for deciding to do something about this. He also explores the possibility that he does have a choice to do nothing and accept the consequences.
It is a tough read but worth it. Understanding that only you can change your own behaviour is vital. Understanding what to do next is something for each individual to explore.
However, it is important to stress that this book is a stand alone masterpiece and can be read at this level alone. It is tough, it is rough (particularly the language) but it is also at the very end, a great book of hope."
"Look: no one ever forced Hunter S Thompson to apologize to his readers or offer refunds for taking liberties with his own "factual" accounts. Despite what he did or did not make up, this book is well written and tells a good story about replacing solitude and drug addiction with friendship and human interaction. Also, don't forget that he originally shopped this as a novel, only to get turned away. Suddenly, he goes back to the SAME PUBLISHER and tells them its a memoir and they buy it.
At the very least, this is a work of fiction inspired by very real and very similar events. It was probably a lot closer to the truth than any movie that claims to be "based on actual events.""
"I'm still not quite sure what to think of this book, even with the revelations that chunks of it were totally made up. To me, that's not its main problem. Frey's entire work is hamstrung by a half-baked stream of consciousness style that is more often annoying than compelling. Sure, I can appreciate the style when he's talking about how messed up in the head he is, but the inexplicable punctuation (he seems to capitalize words randomly) and the total avoidance of quotation marks doesn't make it artsy or authentic. It just makes it hard to read.
The book is also hopelessly melodramatic and romantic in the classical sense of the word. True love at first sight saves the day, the author befriends a mob boss with a heart of gold, and there are more addict sob stories than you can swing a crack pipe at. Really, anybody who thought that this "memoir" was 100% true needs to go into gullibility detox themselves. Stuff just doesn't line up like this in real life. Other "Oh you don't really expect me to believe this" points include:
* Getting on a plane covered in blood, in need of immediate medical attention, and unconscious. I can't even get on a plane with an oversized bag. * Being told he can't have Novocaine (a non-addictive, local, and non-mood altering anesthetic) for a double root canal because he's an addict. * The author's not getting thrown out of a substance abuse clinic when he freaks out and trashes a room. * Being told that the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory pegged the author's intelligence as high (the MMPI doesn't measure intelligence). * A dramatic rescue of a fellow patient from a crack house, accompanied by clinic staff. * One patient's getting the clinic to allow him to have a private party, complete with catered food, gambling, and the setup of a satellite TV system for the viewing of a Pay-Per-View boxing event.
I could go on, but you get the point. So the book is poorly written, melodramatic, and contrived in several places, not to mention that big parts of it are billed as real when they are obviously not. But still, I kept turning the pages until I came to the end, because it's an interesting story and I wanted to know how it came out. Frey also has some thought-provoking things to say about the nature of abuse and how he was able to deal with it --take personal responsibility for not only your problems, but for solving them. He eschews --even mocks-- the whole 12-step program, calling it the replacement of one addition (drugs) with another (the program). While I think one addiction is obviously better than the other in this example, i can kind of see what he's talking about.
But again, since the legitimacy of his whole tale is questionable, I'm not sure I'd recommend looking to him for anything more than an entertaining story."
"addicts exaggerate the truth -- who knew??? first off, it's a great read with a unique style. frey makes a sort of rhythm with his sentence structure throughout the entire story, pulling and pushing the reader along at a pace that he (frey) determines, and that is an amazing accomplishment in itself. it is also a wonderful tool for bringing the reader into a world that he/she may have absolutely no idea about. i've been to rehab -- a few, actually, over the course of a year -- and it is very much like going on a roller coaster without a seat belt when you are least prepared physically/mentally for even the slow car ride there. secondly, it would blow a lot of minds to do some research on how ineffective AA really is. for many, AA will actually make matters worse. i'm not anti-12-step programs, ((if it works, great!)) but there are a lot of other options that people are not made aware of that could save a life or two. third, with regards to the climactic scene where frey confronts the demon-whiskey, whether it actually happened or not is pretty irrelevant; he paints a great picture of how a person feels once he/she is on the other side of the problem/disorder/disease/whatever. looking at a manifestation of the very thing that caused so much damage and pain... the frustration of realizing that it could do it again if one were to let down one's guard for even a second... even the somewhat sick and egotistical pleasure one gets from taunting the old bully that used to beat you up daily and take your lunch money... powerful and poignant. what amazes me more than anything, believe it or not, is frey's honesty. he doesn't do what so many addiction memoirs do, which is romanticise a very self-degrading affliction. he gives it enough of a "hook" here and there to keep the reader's attention, and he drifts in and out of the plot's reality and his subconscious, ((which is also very true to the actual experience,)) but ultimately, he gives a very genuine account of something that (thank God) most people will never have to go through. and when it comes to the scene at the dentist, well, it wouldn't shock me one way or the other concerning his "truthiness." what i will say is that i can't out right dismiss the possibility when it comes to a man who has the courage to put such a personal and difficult experience out there for the entire world. you can question the man's honesty, but not the size of his b*lls."
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