A Million Little Pieces.

Book Review by Joel
This book may not make it into the Web site because I just found out that Oprah was recommending it, which is hard to believe because this is a hard-core look at being in rehab.

I saw this book in the grocery store, wasn’t really looking for a new book but the cover was intriguing. It is a hand covered in small “Contact”-like pills, which I took to be a book about atomic structures or some other physical science book. But lo and behold, I found something much better. This book was hard to put down, sometimes hard to read. He doesn’t hold back anything. His language is that of the streets he came from. The whole ordeal he went through would not be believable without it.

The book is very well-paced, sometimes a bit staccato, but it works in the context of this story. I said sometimes hard to read, like when he describes the dental work he has to go through without pain killers because he is a drug addict. That scene was a bitch. You really get a feel for the healing process without all the buzz phrases tacked on.

This was one of the best books I’ve read this year. I highly recommend it. This was the book I thought our guest reviewer, Uriah, might like since it was similar to the one he reviewed: 70 x 7 and Beyond: Mystery of the Second Chance by Monty Christensen.

Obviously, Joel wrote this review BEFORE it was known that James Frey wrote a fiction account and had to speak with Oprah about it. Here is what Joel had to say:

I am sure you all have heard the buzz about James
Frey's book, A Million Little Pieces by now. I
think we should ammend his book to the fiction
column. Here is a link to the article on "The Smoking Gun", where our readers can see what the hooplah is all about:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0104061jamesfrey1.html

I think we should let the review stand. It is a very good book about a character in rehab. The only difference is it is fiction.

Joel.