Nancy Keane's Booktalks -- Quick and Simple
 
Frey, James.
A MILLION LITTLE PIECES
New York : Anchor Books, 2004
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ISBN 0307276902
Click on the book to read Amazon reviews
"I wake and I start to shiver and I curl up and I clench my fists. Sweat runs down my chest, my arms, the backs of my legs. It stings my face.

I sit up and I hear someone moan. I see a bug in the corner, but I know it's not there. The walls close in and expand they close in and expand and I can hear them. I cover my ears but it's not enough.

I stand. I look around me. I don't know anything. Where am I, why, what happened, how to escape. My name, my life.

I curl up on the floor and I am crushed by images and sounds. Things I have never seen or heard or even knew existed. They come from the ceiling, the door, the window, the desk, the chair, the bed, the closet. They're coming form the f___ing closet. Dark shadows and bright lights and flashes of blue and yellow and red as deep as the red of my blood. They move toward me and they scream at me and I don't know what they are but I know they're helping the bugs. They're screaming at me.

I start shaking. Shaking shaking shaking. My entire body is shaking and my heart is racing and I can see it pounding through my chest and I'm sweating and it stings. The bugs crawl onto my skin and they start biting me and I try to kill them. I claw at my skin, tear at my hair, start biting myself. I don't have any teeth and I'm biting myself and there are the shadows and bright lights and flashes and screams and bugs bugs bugs. I am lost. I am completely f___ing lost.

I scream.

The nurse returns and she calls for help and the men in white come in and they put me on the bed and they hold me there. I try to kill the bugs but I can't move so they live. In me. On me. I feel the stethoscope and the gauge and they stick a needle in my arm and they hold me down.

I am blinded by blackness.

I am gone." (page 11)

Gone into A Million Little Pieces the gripping story by James Frey.

At the age of 23, James Frey finds him self on an airplane to some unknown destination. His teeth are broken, his nose is smashed and there is a hole in his cheek. What happened? He doesn't remember.

With the support of his family he is checked into a treatment facility to deal with his alcohol and crack addictions. This is the tale for mature readers is a vivid description of the six weeks he spent trying to get well. A Million Little Pieces by James Frey. (By Tammy L. Welshon)  Colorado Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award, 2006-2007

SUBJECTS:      Frey, James, 1969-
                        Drug addicts -- Minnesota -- Rehabilitation.
                        Drug addicts -- Minnesota.
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