If you're Oprah, don't read this. I
have had this book targeted on my shelf for ages and have long been
debating my near-term To Read List
so that it may be included. I do not know why I kept pushing it off,
but I have finally come around to read the biggest story of the year
2007!
I enjoyed it, it
had some great stuff to offer. It also had some stuff that buggered
me. In all, though, I am glad I finally took the time.
It starts out
without giving the reader any sort of back story. Just a
drunk/drugged out junkie going through a bit of withdrawals maybe
that force his breakfast, lunch, and dinner to be poured out all over
his clothes, sopping them no matter where he may find himself. Turns
out his parents picked him up at the airport and are delivering him
to a rehab facility, the best in the country.
He is inexplicably
shitty. Not just covered in vomit, and later his own poo, but because
he has no interest in getting better. He is shit, just totally burned
out from crack and alcohol and glue and gas and anything else. I was
almost disappointed at the things he has left out that could have
also worked to get him high. Like Pledge. Or fingernail polish.
He is also told
that he is in such horrible shape, and his body is rejecting sobriety
through withdrawals so vehemently, that he will literally die the
next time he hits the crackpipe. Pretty damn sure, at least. Sure
enough to say that if he goes out into the world he will be dead
within days. And as if this weren't shit enough, he has to get a
couple fillings and root canals because he has not exactly taken care
of his Chiclets during his stint as a Whitney Houston impersonator.
The catch here is that because he is undergoing treatment for
substance abuse, he has to do it without any help from anesthetics or
pain killers. Having your ass-rapist shout “I'm going in dry!”
behind your back comes to mind.
So that's him. But
to counter all of this, he has a heroically awful, anti-hero
personality. He is unequivocally fierce, with a stubbornness and
temper that set up incomprehensible violence and cataclysmic
meltdowns. His stubbornness is also so deeply rooted that he
absolutely refuses, at all levels, anything to do with the Twelve
Steps. “They won't work on me,” his mantra reminds his captors
throughout. We need no reminding, because we get it the first fucking
time he says it.
That is really one
of the very few things I disliked about the book. The repetition. The
repeating of word or words. Mostly word. Repetition. Repeating.
Repetition. Repeating.
Repeating.
Repeating.
…
…
Repeating.
Repeating.
Repeating.
See how annoying
that is? It happens, and happens often in this book. But I gritted
past it. It wasn't “I'm going in dry!” level of unbearable.
The other thing I
disliked was the bit about the Catholic Priest in the end. Seemed
unnecessary. We get it, dude. You are a badass and no one messes
with you. Especially when you were high. Got it. You don't have
to lay down how tough you are or slip one in at the end about how
nobody crosses you.
I really do feel
like it completely matters not – as in zero part of me cares –
whether this book is factual or a fictional biography. I do not think
it affects the reader's experience of it one bit. I went in not
caring and came out not caring, with no opinion on how much I would be
affected if it is 99% true or 1% true. Point being, Oprah is a twat.
I believe she believed everything she was reading was factual, then
berated James Frey simply because its not being completely factual
made her out to look a fool. Don't she know?
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