Book

After hearing lots about it (and no it had nothing to do with Oprah's Book Club), I decided to pick up A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. After the first page I was hooked. I started reading it on Saturday evening, put it down at 2:00 am, woke up on Sunday, had a shower and then finished the book. It's that good.

"At the age of 23, James Frey woke up on a plane to find his four front teeth knocked out, his nose broken, and a hole through his cheek. He had no idea where the plane was headed, nor any recollection of the past two weeks. An alcoholic for the past 10 years, a crack addict for 3, he's checked into a treatment facility shortly after landing. There he's told, despite his rage that he can either stop using or die before he reaches age 24. This is Frey's very personal and acclaimed account of his six weeks in rehab."

Very raw, very real, and very intelligently written. It's uncommon to hear an addict take full responsibility for his actions - no blame laid on anyone or anything but himself. You can also hear a read by Frey himself (12 min). Thanks to Jockohomo for the link.

This book grabbed my attention not only for the reasons above, but because I noticed a lot a similarities between Frey and my ex, Psycho. If that's not scary, then I don't know what is. Now, Psycho wasn't a crack addict, but he did have a very addictive personaility. He often thought that everything would be more fun if drugs were involved - even if we were already having a good time, and he is an alcoholic as I've mentined before. Frey's views on life and love, as well as the constant Fury he refers to, just had way too much in common with Psycho's own views and rage.

The key difference however, is that unlike Frey, Psycho blamed anybody and everybody for absolutely everything that went wrong in his life. Even down to the silliest, smallest things. Like the time we were sitting at home with Q (who was just a friend at the time), enjoying some ice cream. Psycho spilled some on his shirt and then screamed, jumped up, and then ran over to the kitchen sink in his princess rage, acting like the world was going to end. Then he started yelling at me because I wasn't helping him. Honestly, how much work does it take to dab water on a shirt and then go upstairs and change it? That was Q's first taste of the real Psycho, and he still vivdly remembers the incident. I just added it to the list.