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 enlarge | Author: James Frey
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy Used: $8.33
You Save: $18.62 (69%)
New (60) Used (48) Collectible (9) from $8.33
Rating:  132 reviews
Sales Rank: 5295
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 512
Number Of Items: 1
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: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Free tracking of all orders so you know where it is and that it was delivered. Please no correctional institutions. On occasion we may substitute a hardback for a softcover as inventory allows
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 26-30 of 132
 Not Much Shiny Here August 11, 2008
Jonathan S. Pearson
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Bright Shiny Morning is the story of four groups of people, broken up by a lot of useless information and the beginnings of other stories that never go anywhere. The four stories include a homeless alcoholic, two teenage runaways from Ohio, a secretly gay movie star in a fake marriage (think Tom Cruise), and a Hispanic girl who works as a nanny. These stories are interesting and James Frey definitely knows how to tell a story. I was immediately dragged into two of the four. The other two I didn't care for because I didn't like the characters.
The rest of the book contains, like I said, a lot of useless information. Does anyone really want to read 20 pages of useless facts about Los Angeles? This is the kind of thing you get as a forward in your email, not spend $25 on. There are also a lot of characters introduced, but then never heard from again. I would have been interested to find out more about the gun salesman or the rape victim who purchased the gun after seeing her assailant at the fast food restaurant. Alas, not in this book.
I will say that the book was difficult to put down. I kept skipping past the useless (in my opinion) pages to get back to the main characters. It is difficult to read at times and not all of the stories have happy endings.
While not a perfect book, it does showcase Mr. Frey's talent and I hope that more is to come.
 Literary Feast August 10, 2008
Stef Ann Holm (Boise, Idaho)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I never got caught up in the uproar surrounding James Frey's Oprah pick, A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. I sat from afar, shaking my head thinking, "This guy jerked the wrong person and got caught. We'll never hear from him again." In the fallout, I do admit to being curious about the memoir, more from the standpoint of a rubbernecker with that unexplainable penchant to view a horrendous car wreck on the freeway, but I told myself I was an author, and authors don't support authors like Frey. I passed the crash, kept on driving. So when I came across a review in PEOPLE on Frey's newest, BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, I only took a cursory glance. So I guess Literary Land does give a guy a second chance. Frey's latest endeavor: fiction. Perhaps it was still that need to view the collision that I scanned the review. Two words caught my attention: Los Angeles. I was hooked.
I was born and raised in L.A. county. While I've now lived in Idaho for 18 years, L.A. formed who I was/am today. L.A. is its own character on the map, a city that is . . . well, captured so well in Frey's book, I'm nearly at a loss on how to review it. At the risk of sounding like a completely smitten fan, there's really no other way for me to say it: BRIGHT SHINY MORNING is, to me, a literary feast.
Some may be turned off from the start with the rambling vignettes, the narrative, the run on sentences, the lack of punctuation. Almost like a new eyeglass prescription, the reader has to adjust to the style of the book, but once one learns to read each word independently, they fall into place. Frey omits the traditional format and doesn't indent anything. Doesn't use dialogue quotes, almost writes in a meandering manner that defies the publishing system. Ironic . . .
What sucked me in, were the historical facts of Los Angeles. These small pieces of information start the beginning of each chapter--which really aren't chapters, as there is no chapter numbers on anything. You simply move from scene to scene, much like a piece of trash floating on the Santa Anas, stopping here and there, to tell a story. One story. One hundred stories. One thousand stories. Of the millions of people who live in L.A. From the rich, to the poor, to the homeless, to the immigrants, to actors, musicians, the porn stars. Out of all the character vignettes, I probably got the biggest chuckle over the adult film industry folks. I was raised in Chatsworth, in the San Fernando Valley; graduated from Chatsworth High with Val Kilmer and Kevin Spacey. 90% of all porn is filmed in the Valley--most in Chatsworth. Don't ask me why. It just is.
Many of the historical facts captured my interest, an earthquake I lived through, a fire. The passage on the L.A. freeways, the ones I learned to drive on in drivers training . . . classic. I smiled with fond memories at the network of arteries that are the pulse of L.A. You need them, you curse them, they are the only way to get from Point A to Point B. When I moved to Idaho, I'd ask, "How long does it take to get there on the freeway?" The answer would be, "It's five miles." I'd shake my head, "No, you don't get it--how long? Like an hour, or what?" I was gazed at as if I were dense. In L.A., it might take you an hour to travel one mile on the Santa Monica in rush hour.
BRIGHT SHINY MORNING, while meandering in its characters, the majority we never see again, does follow a loose structure of four main players. There's Dylan and Maddie, nineteen, running to L.A. in the hopes of finding their dream life. I was touched the most by these characters, and hoping they would succeed in a city that can make or break you. I felt for them, I knew where they were in the Valley, and I'd pushed my daughter in a baby carriage through the Westside Pavilion, the area where Maddie found her "dream" apartment. Then there's Esperanza, a Mexican-American girl, whose dream it was for her parents to give her a better life. Her story follows her growing up in East L.A., the struggles of the family, the vow her father makes to protect her. And Amberton Parker, the movie actor who is gorgeous, married, has kids, but leads a secret life. His story is pathetically narcissistic, and most likely, all too true. Old Man Joe, homeless, lives in the bathroom at Venice Beach. He's drawn so vividly, I think I know him. Seen him there many times when riding my bike on the boardwalk.
While this novel may not hold the same appeal to someone who didn't call Los Angeles home, it's worth reading for the cast of characters, people we know, don't want to know, wish we knew. It's a daily struggle of life, trying to blend, mesh, meld, tolerate, love . . . hate. BRIGHT SHINY MORNING was a journey home for me, almost a maudlin reflection of where I'd been for the first thirty-three years of my life. There were times I read and I grew homesick. Other times, I thanked God I don't live in that smog-pit anymore. Whatever the case, the novel captured my attention, and dare I admit it, made me a fan of Frey.
Wow. August 8, 2008
K. K. Jo (Maryland)
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
Betty Griffin (Columbus, GA USA)
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
Gwendolyn Dawson (Houston, Texas United States)
4 out of 8 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.
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