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Bright Shiny Morning
by: James Frey

List Price: $26.95

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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061573132
ISBN: 0061573132
Label: Harper
Manufacturer: Harper
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: May 01, 2008
Publisher: Harper
Release Date: May 13, 2008
Studio: Harper
Sales Rank: 10798

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Editorial Review:

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.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Bizarre reading...
This book was one of the more bizarre I have read. I skipped through some of the "lists" that he had in the book. I found them to be insignificant and rather boring. I liked the fact that he had every other chapter as an informational one, showing how the population increased and how the city was growing in different ways. I like some of the story lines about Amberton, Lemonade, etc. I don't think I would recommend the story to other people because it didn't move me in that manner. I am glad I read it. It never hurts one to read a book, no matter how bizarre.

Rating:

- Don't Bother
Don't bother with this book. The only good part was the actor who did the storytelling. This book obviously was just a thrown together book to complete a contract commitment or something. It was to all over the place. He was introducing new characters in the last couple chapters of the book. I did not pick this book to get all of those stupid facts about Los Angeles.

Rating:

- Cannot figure out how this has an average rating of 4 stars
I am amazed after finishing this book that it has an average of 4 stars. It is one of the most disjointed books I've ever read. It is incredibly bleak. The writing style of no punctuation and run-on sentences is annoying. He tends to have pages of lists i.e gangs in L.A. by ethnic groups, veterans who have been injured in various wars, people who come to L.A. to make it big in acting and end up in a dead-end job... the lists seem endless at times. I also question his research because there are definite errors in regards to gun laws and costs at community college to name a few. AND YET there was something compelling about it to make me continue reading for 500 pages... I'm not sure what.

Unless you're looking for a rather depressing and muddled book with atrocious grammar ... Read More

Rating:

- So Shoot Me: I Enjoyed It
There's been a lot of negative ink about Frey's latest book, probably people who are mad at him for having betrayed Oprah.

This effort is huge in scope. It's influenced by the movie CRASH (which is one of my favorites) and in a way I saw echoes of SPOON RIVER ANTHOLOGY and FERN HILL...only with graphic violence and sex. In a way, reading this is very much like using Google maps to explore Los Angeles.

Some characters are sustained throughout the book, others make brief appearances and are seen no more. Throughout the book we are told facts (how factual? good question) about the history of Los Angeles. Frey keeps his chapters short, so I kept reading and kept telling myself just one more characters.

Several have said that the characters are "cliches" ... Read More

Rating:

- Two sentences.. title unnecessary
For two weeks I couldn't wait to get home from work and pick up this book. Mr Frey, thanks for helping me through two weeks of dark cold Seattle evenings.

Books : Bright Shiny Morning