January 30, 2006

Refund For Lies?

I noticed that someone found my site when they googled "James Frey Refund".
This phrase probably led them to this post I wrote about the controversy surrounding James Frey's book A Million Little Pieces.

Since I wrote that, he's admitted publicly that he did make up a lot of what made his book so compelling.
I wasn't surprised that he made it up, just surprised that he had the balls to go on Oprah, face her wrath and admit the truth.

So, you know how I feel about his "lies"...I don't care.
But now, I'm assuming there are people who are demanding refunds for the book they bought.
How ridiculous.
If you didn't know anything about quantam physics and you bought a book by Joe Schmo, PhD called "Quantam Physics for Jack Asses" you'd read the book and go "Wow. I didn't know Quantam Physics was so interesting!" and go on with your life.
What you would probably never know is that Joe Schmo is full of shit.
Joe Schmo wouldn't know Quantam Physics if it slapped him on the ass and called him Mary.
You take the risk anytime you buy non-fiction. Just because they have a bunch of letters behind their name doesn't mean they know what the hell they are talking about.
But you'd never know that. You enjoyed the book and your life seemed a little more enriched by it.

That's what happened when you read James Frey's book. His writing is unusual and he made you FEEL. It wasn't like he wrote a book about flying to Saturn on his red wagon. He wrote about things that happen to real people everyday. It just didn't really happen to him.
Just because it was fiction disguised as a memoir doesn't mean his work wasn't just as good.

Don't ask for your money back, people. Just know that you read some pretty good literature.

Posted by De at January 30, 2006 02:35 PM | TrackBack
Comments

i bought the book this weekend. figured that if i learned something from it, who gives a shit if it was a "true" story or not.

in short, i hate all of these naysaying babies. :D

Posted by: Angela at January 30, 2006 05:09 PM

Shit Ang...I should start a bookswap through my blog. The person that wanted the refund could just send you the book and save you a couple of bucks.

But...yay! We hate whiny babies!

Posted by: De at January 30, 2006 05:12 PM