thirteen/fifty-two

Now, when I said I was "enjoying" A Million Little Pieces, I didn't mean that in a frolicky springtime day way. James Frey's story of recovery (from addiction to all sorts of nasty stuff) is very, very hard to read at times. He is quite blunt about all the gross stuff that happens when you abuse your body as much as he did. Also, his writing style (as I mentioned below) is difficult to get into at first. It seemed pretentious and overly precious and annoying for the first few chapters, and it distracted me from the story (perhaps a good thing?) for a while. It starts to become kind of rhythmic after a while, though, and I think it works well with the story. (I've read somewhere [it's mentioned in the linked article above, too] that he wanted the writing to draw readers in, to help them feel what it's like to be addicted themselves, and I think it accomplishes that.)

I won't get into the whole AA good/bad debate, because I have no deep knowledge of it myself.

All in all, a good book, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "the War and Peace of addiction," as Pat Conroy's back cover blurb claims, but it was good. Didn't glorify addiction, didn't mince words. Also, the design of the copy I have (softcover) is very nice.