It just goes to show you that if you cross your fingers and hope real hard, your dreams really can come true! The wish we assume James Frey has been making for a week has come to pass, as Janet Maslin reviews his novel, Bright Shiny Morning, in today's New York Times . That's the same Janet Maslin who, just last week, wagged her finger at Augusten Burroughs, suggesting it was time for him to move from memoir to fiction. We speculated then that Frey must have read her review and thought, Please let Janet Maslin review my novel. And it turns out she has — and, as telegraphed a week ago, she loved it!

She loved it so much, in fact, that she wrote the review in Frey style. ("A million little pieces. It was the name of the book. It was also how hard he got hit.") At first we were annoyed, but then we realized that's just good customer service on Maslin's part — we found the style so off-putting that it curbed any desire we might otherwise have had to read James Frey's novel and decide for ourselves whether it's any good.

Little Pieces of Los Angeles, Done His Way [NYT]

Earlier: ‘Times’ Review of Augusten Burroughs’ Memoir Basically Recommends James Frey’s Novel