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Bright Shiny Morning | 
 enlarge | Author: James Frey
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $14.35
You Save: $12.60 (47%)
New (50) Collectible (7) from $14.35
Avg. Customer Rating:  106 reviews
Sales Rank: 1734
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
Condition: BRAND NEW - - EXCEPTIONAL VALUE - EXCELLENT BUY!
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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 101 more reviews...
 Wow. August 8, 2008
I want to make it clear I have yet to read the other works he's done, even the one with all the controversy surrounding it. I gave this author a fresh start and I wasn't disappointed.
The flow of the book was good, I liked the "facts", the history of L.A., and the intermittent stories of people who have gravitated toward it. A few people think it's characters are cliche or unbelievable, but I have a friend right now contemplating the "pick up and move to be an actress" bit. I should probably pass this book along and let her know what she's up against.
The personal character stories are excellent-I felt most compatible with Dylan & Maddie, my heart breaking along with hers at the outcome of simply wanting a better life.
I was engrossed the entire time and I highly recommend it. Bravo.
Read love read love read August 6, 2008
I bought the book. I read it I read it I laid it aside and thought it I picked it back up. I read about all the people the good people the bad people the people who were good and bad and yellow and brown and white and sick and twisted and loving. Away from the book I thought it, thought it. I smiled laughed cried cringed and I kept reading and then I finished the book. I slowly ran my hands over the back cover then the front cover and opened it to Frey's photo and wondered if he liked that T-shirt so named by the Japanese man. Did the Japanese man really name it? Are there 65 people named Jesus Christ? Is Skid Row 50 square blocks? Do I care? No. I care that I read the book loved the book loved read. I care that it's over and there's not another page to read. Except the first. All over again.
 500 Pages Without Much Substance August 6, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bright Shiny Morning is a chaotic snapshot of L.A. It's like a music video but without the music or the video. Fictional vignettes, sometimes entertaining though more often predictable and trite, are jumbled with more mundane elements like lists of `fun facts' about L.A., descriptions of highways, historical events, and other minutiae. The book goes something like this: vignette about two in-love teenagers coming to L.A. to escape their abusive parents--cut to a list of the names of all the gangs in L.A.--cut to a one-page snippet about an aspiring actress promised a job in exchange for sex--cut to a three-sentence description of L.A. bank robberies in 1895--cut to a vignette about a self-absorbed movie superstar and his problems with his boyfriends--cut to a dull recitation of all the natural disasters that have ever hit L.A. In Bright Shiny Morning, nothing is sustained and nothing lasts. At times, Frey's quick-paced prose is a refreshing break from the more mundane aspects of this novel, but he indulges too often in repetition. A couple typical examples:
The children thought she was crazy, they were all still scared of him. He seemed bigger every day. He was bigger every day.
Every night before he went to sleep he lay in bed and dreamed, lay in bed and dreamed.
I suspect Frey is trying to add a certain weightiness with this repetition, but I found it to be an annoying affectation, especially after seeing it on almost every page. Although Frey succeeds in capturing the frenetic and ephemeral aspects of modern L.A., I was left feeling this is a 500-page book with nothing in it that's real or important.
LET DOWN August 6, 2008
I read the first two books Mr. Frey wrote and will probably read them again. I bought several copies of each book and gave them to people that I knew would appreciate them. I was so happy to find that he had written another book and was so looking forward to making it my "Summer's Best Read". The book started out good and held my attention but about half way through I got bored with his stories (other then the parts about the three main tales) and the facts about LA did nothing for me. I guess if you are interested in LA you might find it worth reading. I don't think I will reccommend or buy this book for anyone this time around. Maybe the next one will make me stand up and cheer for James. Wish this could have been a positive review!
Maybe the best I have ever read August 6, 2008
When I was 19, I took a class in undergraduate about Los Angeles based fiction. It was an interesting class, I only wish this book had been around during that time so that it could have been part of the required reading.
I come from a family of voracious readers, I started with Jurassic Park when I was only ten years old, and haven't stopped reading since. I have read Hemingway, Joyce, Emmerson, Kerouac, all wonderful storytellers in their own way. But I can honestly say that I cannot remember a novel in recent years that moved me quite as much as "Bright shiny morning". I was literally reduced to tears (I can't remember the last time this happened!!) by the end. I'm not sure if I cried because I felt so strongly for these characters, or because I was sad that the book had come to an end. All I know is I want more, more, more!
The word "cliche" has been used an awful lot in reviews of this book, and fairly so. The bum with the heart of gold, the hispanic maid, the shallow actor who adds very little (nothing?) of value to society and yet is worshiped as a God. These are all stories that have been told before. It is the WAY in which Frey tells them that is so powerful, so moving, so thought provoking and emotional. It is a story that manages to entertain and simultaneously cause you to question your own priorities in life, causes you to think about what is really important, at least thats what it did for me.
Saying this book is no good because it uses cliches is like missing the forest for the trees. Frey's writing here is exceptional, emotional, and beautiful. Do yourself a favor, suspend any prior opinions about the author you may have, and try to read the book with an open mind. I think you'll find, as I did, a literary treasure that rises miles above what is traditionally put out there these days.
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