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Bright Shiny Morning | 
| Author: James Frey
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $15.60
You Save: $11.35 (42%)
New (49) Used (13) Collectible (7) from $15.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 798
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: International shipping available
Condition: Brand new item. Over 3.5 million customers served. Order now. Selling online since 1995. Order with confidence. Code: B20080718222140T
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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 87 more reviews...
 Jackie Collins anyone....? July 17, 2008
This book is like a Jackie Collins novel. A little dose of suspense, thin characters, really awful dialogue, and lots & lots of cliched stereotypes. The story line about the famous couple is the absolute worst. Honest to god, it's PURE Jackie Collins. To be fair, I'm only 3/4 of the way through, but I'm guessing it doesn't get much better. I liked his first book (can't remember the name) and couldn't give a rats bum that it was made up. Good writing is good writing in my opinion. But this book....ugh, this book is really bad. Also, I live in LA, and his portrait of the city is ridiculous. Some of it is true (his description of the traffic & freeways and struggling actors are particularly accurate), but most of it so exaggerated and some of it is just downright inaccurate. The only good thing about the book is the cover art. I thought it was lovely.
 Satisfied July 15, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I bought this book for my daughter. She said she liked the book very much.
Great Book Love his Unique Writing Style July 15, 2008
Read the book, if you like a little bit quirky, like I do, you'll LOVE IT.
I loved James Frey since Million Little Pieces. Was a little disappointed about the whole scandal. Mainly because my husband and I had debated whether it was true before it all "Came Out" Regardless, it was a GREAT book. If you have a problem with him, don't read his book, SIMPLE.
Anyway back to the book at hand.
Loved how it had a bunch of stories together. You kept wondering when the characters were going to come back for a visit. I'm not going to go into summarizing the whole book because I hate to read summaries before I actually read a book. I think it gives to much away. The only thing I didn't LOVE were the asides about LA. However, I understand that Frey was trying to make LA the main character, which he suceeded in doing. It's very quick read because of his writing style. I just LOOOVE the way he writes. It's exactly like someone talks. It's so unique and refreshing. Give the book a try you won't be disappointed.
 Dusty Dark Prose July 14, 2008
I have not read Frey's other books (not because of the recent bad press, but was just not interested). However, I was intrigued by Bright Shiny Morning. I love stories about Los Angeles, and themes about people struggling in that setting. I lived in Southern Cal. ten years ago, and kind of can relate to the struggle. I read some decent reviews; I saw him on various news programs, and felt I would give his latest book a read.
I read it with an opened mind. I enjoyed it, hated it, and probably wished I hadn't bought it. Here's the thing: if Frey would have published this a hundred years ago, it would have been cutting-edge literature. Chances are, it would have not been published 100 years ago because of its bad language. But Frey would have been catapulted to literary fame. Eventually. Like Melville. The thing is that Joyce, Woolf, and Faulkner have already done the run-on sentences, subconscious prose, to suggest the feeling of the characters' minds on the page. Reading this at the beginning was fine, and it was interesting. I was hooked. The device still works, but for 500 pages?!
Well, I shouldn't say 500 pages, because Frey does a hell of a job mixing in facts here. We are bombarded with lists. I mean lists of things! For example, soldiers who have lost limbs in Iraq and even in Vietnam; people in L.A. and New York who strive to be an artist but find themsevles working low-end jobs. It's interesting, appealing to the story, and it serves its purpose to create that ambience of disillusion that L.A. often creates for people (especially those who want to be in the entertainment business).
The book does its job of moving the reader along, and it is not as tough to read as some people have suggested. It just gets kind of annoying after awhile. Not sure about other readers, but I could never really latch onto one or two characters, like you can in most novels. It felt as though I was just reading about their lives, and "list of lives." There was really no story arc, either. There's drama, and Frey does a good job at writing the nuances of people in limbo. In fact, there's probably no other contemporary writer today who nails the jest of people's sudden decline as they get sucked into the demoralization of their environment.
And that is what Bright Shiny Morning does: the reader is part of that demoralization and is left sucked away. If that is what Frey aimed to achieve in this book, he did a good job. If he was trying to reinvent himself or fiction, it did not succeed.
Great read July 13, 2008
I might be biased because I really loved A Million Little Pieces (read it four times) and My Friend Leonard (read it twice). I thought this book was really interesting and highly recommend it to anyone who wants a unique book. It tells 4 non-intersecting stories. Yeah, they are cliche, but for some reason so compelling. I also like the facts about L.A. interspersed throughout the book.
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