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Bright Shiny Morning | 
 enlarge | Author: James Frey
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy Used: $3.94
You Save: $23.01 (85%)
New (60) Used (61) Collectible (10) from $3.94
Rating:  135 reviews
Sales Rank: 4240
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.7
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.9 x 1.7
ISBN: 0061573132
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061573132
ASIN: 0061573132
Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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Product Description
One of the most celebrated and controversial authors in America delivers his first novel—a sweeping chronicle of contemporary Los Angeles that is bold, exhilarating, and utterly original. Dozens of characters pass across the reader's sight lines—some never to be seen again—but James Frey lingers on a handful of LA's lost souls and captures the dramatic narrative of their lives: a bright, ambitious young Mexican-American woman who allows her future to be undone by a moment of searing humiliation; a supremely narcissistic action-movie star whose passion for the unattainable object of his affection nearly destroys him; a couple, both nineteen years old, who flee their suffocating hometown and struggle to survive on the fringes of the great city; and an aging Venice Beach alcoholic whose life is turned upside down when a meth-addled teenage girl shows up half-dead outside the restroom he calls home. Throughout this strikingly powerful novel there is the relentless drumbeat of the millions of other stories that, taken as a whole, describe a city, a culture, and an age. A dazzling tour de force, Bright Shiny Morning illuminates the joys, horrors, and unexpected fortunes of life and death in Los Angeles.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 130 more reviews...
 My Hope May 14, 2008
174 out of 203 found this review helpful
I was the first to get the book from my local Barnes and Nobles and I know this because they told me this--I read a lot. I read Austen and Bronte. I read Hemingway and Faulkner. I read Mailer and Vidal. I read I read I read. You'll have to trust me when I say that I consider myself a literate person, a published writer, and a harsh and unbearable critic--of self and others--and I haven't read all of Bright Shiny Morning yet. I have read four hundred and ten pages of it. With the negative reviews that are to follow, I figured a partial review on my favorite place to buy books online would be appropriate to thin out what will surely be many an unjust review. Let's put aside that he's an embellisher in his memoirs (I could care less). Let's focus solely on the novel at hand. Let's start with the negatives.
Two Teens runaway from home to start a life together. (Cliche)
A blockbuster actor married to a beautiful woman is really gay. (Cliche)
A spanish nanny with a deformity who starts a relationships with the son of a client. (Cliche)
A homeless man who befriends a runaway. (Most assuredly cliche)
The writing is shoddily punctuated, annoyingly incomplete, and choppy. (You look and have to make sure you read it right).
The language is rough. (Constant swearing, difficult to read material)
The vignette excursions are sometimes annoying, sometimes interesting, sometimes boring, sometimes a miss, and sometimes a hit. (Some worked in the book, other's probably could've been left out).
Now I'll tell you why none of these negatives matter.
The cliche story lines could kill a book if not so beautifully put together that you become engrossed in the characters--the characters become the originals in a story that's been told a thousand times.
The writing is all his own. It's reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It flares with an immediacy not seen in books anymore--or rarely seen in books anymore. The excursions from the story are necessary because without them, you don't get the major character, which is, LA. LA rings as the focal character, a land and place all its own that rings true to the world around us, the focal point for the American dream, the focal point for hope and decadance, the focal point for stardom and fame, the focal point for what drives American's home lives to the television each day, the focal point for these characters existence, the focal point for life in a sense.
I ask, and I hope, my only hope, that you who are angry at James Frey, let it go, and don't try and crush the book simply because you feel lied to. A believable lie, after all, is what good fiction is made out of, for if he could suspend disbelief well enough for us to believe everything in his memoir's (that he didn't even want to call memoirs, mind you, it's labeled, Memoir/Literature), he certainly suspends disbelief in bringing to life the characters. You will feel their pain and their defeats, their victories and their happines, at least to where I've read to. I don't know about the rest of the book... but he's never been one for the crapped out ending, so I'm quite sure. Buy it, you'll love it. If you don't buy it and you don't read it, then just don't write a review, for a review is not how you feel about the author, it's how you feel about the work he put out into the world, so be mature, grow up, and read a good book from a unique and new voice in the world of literature.
A brilliant character study - of a city. May 27, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
500 pages in two sittings. I opened the book and was immersed in an utterly amazing character study, not of a person, but of a place, a city, a metropolis so vast and varied and unforgiving. A place of dreams and disasters. Of beauty an inch deep and a mile wide. Frey's depiction of L.A. is a masterpiece. But is it really a work of fiction?
I LOVE JAMES FREY. READ THIS BOOK. June 30, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I did not read Million Little Pieces, but after Oprahs ridiculous self-absorbed scene (you lied to me, you lied to me!) I wanted to support James and just had a feeling that he was good.
Wow. I haven't enjoyed a book this much since The Corrections. So if you liked that, and think you might like this, then read it. Also, does anyone see the subtle association of it's character Amberton Parker to Tom Cruise? (The last three letter 'ton' sound like "Tom" and the opposite of parking is cruising. I thought it was so evident - in fact it so mimicked Tom Cruise as a possible way that he lives.
The lives of the other characters - brilliant. Real. So engrossing. The way the chapters are written - very easy to read a section and stop - and pick up again. I love the LA history - you see a perfect storm brewing. I am only about 100 pages in, but had to stop and say that this is AMAZING, and anyone that doesn't like this is wasting resources on this planet and should kill themselves, and I mean that. This is a great book. JAMES FREY IS A BLESSING TO THIS WORLD.
James Frey is a master storyteller June 24, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I want to preface this review by saying that I am one of those people who couldn't care less if James Frey or his publishers (or whomever) called his first book, A Million Little Pieces, a memoir. The fact that is was a great piece of literature -- terrific story, great writing, and a truly compelling read -- is all that should matter at the end of the day. His next book, My Friend Leonard, was at least as good, if not better, and more than proved that James Frey was not a one-hit-wonder.
With that being said, I now want to gush about Bright Shiny Morning. No, it's not the least bit uplifting and it covers dark topics that many of us wish we could ignore. BUT...but the story is so well-told that you won't be able to put the book down...you will want to know what happens to each character, and why. You will be so instantly engrossed that even the unbelievably breathtaking views of the Caribbean will not cause you to lift your head up from the pages of this book. At least that was my experience.
READ IT! Then share with others. You won't be sorry.
Bright Shiny Morning June 8, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Absolutely loved this book. James Frey is an awesome author and I hope people will give him a second chance because this book is worth it. Loved it Loved it Loved it!!!!!
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