Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Full review to be found on Goodreads and on my website.

This was an interesting read. And a new author for me. I got a copy of the book. And am voluntarily leaving my review.

What an outstanding book that had me hooked from the start. Loved everything about the characters and the story line.

I struggled to get into this book. I found that it really bounced around a lot in the beginning and I struggled to keep up with the different time lines. The writing and formatting was choppy. I started to piece things together about half way through and enjoyed the last 25% of the story. We follow a writer on his journey to becoming published and bounce between the past and his current life. There are some graphic sexual scenes in story. While this isn't a book I would recommend, I have read many positive reviews and would recommend everyone to try it out. I believe that this style of writing would appeal to certain readers.

Wow, so the synopsis of this novel sounds AMAZING. I regrettably did not get the opportunity to read the novel in order to give it a proper review! I will definitely be on the lookout to get my hands on a copy of this novel as soon as possible.

I would like to thank Netgalley and the publisher of this novel for allowing me the opportunity to read this digital ARC in exchange for an honest review. I am very sorry that I was unable to read the novel in the allotted time before it got archived!

I was skeptical about reading another James Frey book after his past deceptions. Despite this, i was pleasantly surprised; he is a great author and story teller. Now knowing the full story of A Million Little Pieces, I will re read that one with a new perspective.

With Katerina, I couldn't put it down. I stayed up well into the night reading and reading. James' writing really captivates the audience. I don't find a lot of books that I can refer to most people. Since finishing Katerina, I have referred it to many people who also loved it.

If you can look past James' controversial past, this is a great read!

This is a love it or hate it book.
The style of prose is so unique that it will be polarizing.
For me, I loved it. I loved reading something in a new way, and given the premise of the book, I felt like the style allowed me to connect to the characters on a deeper level.
I was entranced by his flow, his process, and the way that he was HIM. Uncompromising. Books to the bottom of the river if they aren't up to stnadard, not just put in the back of a closet.
If you spend time with this book, get to a place where the style flows and connects, you will go deeper into this story than if you try to read it in 10min increments.
I read this book 3 times before writing this review because I couldn't stop reading it. I would spend all night reading it, then go back the next night and do it all again.

James Frey was not the first person to write a memoir that was largely untrue. His 2003 book A Million Little Pieces was originally marketed as a memoir. By 2006 it was unmasked as a fraud. The experiences he claimed for himself didn’t happen. Well they did, but not to him. He appropriated to himself the lives of drug addicts and petty criminals.

It wasn’t the first time a memoir suffered from amnesia. Similar, but different, books posing as autobiographies have even happened in Canada. Stand out examples include the German-born Frederick Philip Grove and the English-born Archibald Belaney. The latter pretended to be an Indigenous conservationist named Grey Owl.

Sometimes authors can get away with this if their other work has enough merit to stand on its own. Unfortunately for Frey, his does not. He has written a novel, Katrina, about a novelist who does pretty much what Frey did with his earlier frauds. His problem is that it’s not a very good novel.

The book didn’t draw me in. As much as I tried, I found myself not caring about what happens to its characters. When you don’t care what happens to them, when you don't root for the protagonist, the author has failed.

I tried to get into this book but it just isn't for me. I was bored and really didn't like it .

I know some people like it but I just didn't like it at all.

<i>Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review</i>

Here is my honest review. <b>Katerina</b> is an acquired taste. You either love it or hate it.

I hate it.

Yes, it took me 5 excruciating months to get through this book. 5 months because 19% of the way through, I have had enough. I had to put it down and step away. It was just too much. I know some readers will call this art, but I can only shake my head. I don't see any "art" in the way James intentionally wrote the story like a continuous, uninterrupted thought-wave fueled by narcissistic contempt for rules, order, and responsibility. Nor did I see any art in how the title character, Jay, is the embodiment of a lost, self-abusive shadow of a human drowning himself in alcohol and cocaine 24/7 and raping his soul in quick-y, meaningless sex in alleys and washrooms. This character is aimless, self-destructive, arrogant and mean. Furthermore, there is no real story. This book just loops the reader's attention like a ping pong ball back and forth between the past, where the reader meanders along side Jay through the streets of Paris, and the present, where the reader peers over Jay's shoulder as he text on his computer, in his little shack of an office in America, with a mysterious "long lost" acquaintance. And you will not know until the very last chapter why this acquaintance, who has not been in touch for 20+ years, is suddenly connecting with Jay again. Yes, the "climax" does not occur until the <u>very last chapter</u>. Everything before the last chapter is a big hungover train wreck. It is downright messy.

I started this book but just couldn't get into it at all. I will pick it up again, but I didn't find the characters likeable; I was not invested in their lives at all. In fact, the portion that I did read just did nothing for me.

I couldn't get into this book. Sorry. Found it to be a snoozefest. I did not finish it. I give a book 50 pages to grab me and it didnt grab me. I wasnt interested.

Thank you to Net Galley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. James Frey’s novel, Katerina, takes place between Paris in 1992 and Los Angeles in 2017. It is the story of a young author and his scorching love affair. This comes across as a pseudo-memoir more than fiction with a lot of sex thrown in.
Not my cup of tea.

Wow just wow. Hard, full ,raw emotion. Can’t stop reading when you begin. Made me cry at the end. I want more!

Regardless of the controversy surrounding James Frey's #1 best seller "A Million Little Pieces" I loved the story! It gripped my heartstrings like few others.
Fifteen years later Frey gives us "Katerina" which had me power reading til the very end. I couldn't get enough of this raw and guttural story of Jay, a young American writer living in 1992 Paris through to Los Angeles in 2017. His dream of writing a best selling novel, his descent into addiction, and the literary scandal that made him famous worldwide is all described in detail throughout.
His torrid love affair with Katerina, a stunning model he knew in Paris, was both reckless and impulsive. She was the love of his life. A love he abandoned.
Twenty-five years later, with the past behind him, he receives a anonymous message. This sudden surprise leads this story to an incredible ending.
The author's intent is to "burn the world down" with his novels and I feel he has done just that.
I could read his work over and over again.

3.5 Stars
This was a difficult book to rate. It took a long time for me to get into it. But I liked the story.
I am torn over this book . I wanted to really like it but there were times in the book I wanted to just slap the characters.
Looking forward to reading more by this author

I am torn over this book . I wanted to really like it but there were times in the book I wanted to just slap the characters . The book takes place in 2017 with flash back chapters that take place in Paris 1992. The stories main character Jay is remembering his past and the one woman who had his soul . He is bouncing between the young man who was just out of his teens and the middle aged man who is trying to figure out his life and the one that got away .
The characters in this book were hard to like . Katerina was just a spoiled brat that would do things to just peeve Jay off . Jay bounced between a young man who just out of his teens . Who went to Paris to find himself . Well there were drugs and alcohol and the one woman who just turned his world around . They were a combustible couple who sometimes worked but they fought more .
This book had its ups and downs , the author took us on the rollercoaster ride of emotions. There were parts of the book that kind of dragged and the characters really didn't do it for me . The book was ok and I would read more from this author but this book was not for me

To this day, I am still not sure how much I really enjoyed reading A Million Little Pieces, and I feel like I will continue to feel the same way about Katerina for a long time, also.

This book broke my heart. I loved it, despite my misgivings at first. Yes, it's gross. Yes, it's self-centered. Yes, you are reading about people destroying their lives... but there's something that hooked me in this book that made me love it. It reached me in a way that the author's first book didn't. It was poetic and quite beautiful at times, and I agree with the blurb - it was dazzling and controversial, and I would definitely read it again.

I almost gave it four stars, I have to be honest. It's pornographic at times, which to me took away from the experience that is this book. I wish it had been toned down a little bit - if it had, I think this would be part of my favourite ten books out there. Still, the raunchy sex didn't stay with me, but the story of Jay and Katerina did. If you can see beyond that, then this is a wonderful read.

I'd like to thank Simon & Schuster Canada, as well as Netgalley, for the free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This story was a bit much for me and had a lot of repetitiveness. It had the same sort of writing style as his older work but something was lacking. Not my cup of tea. * I received a copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review *

For the vast majority of this book, I despised it. I wanted to quit because I was tired of the repetitiveness, the lack of commas, the lack of quotation marks, the vulgarity, and my general dislike of the main character, Jay. Then I got to the end and it completely crushed me. Although, unfortunately, the heart wrenching ending does not make up for all of the pages I had to read to get there (but it did bump my rating up from 1 to 2 stars).

This is my first book by James Frey, although I have wanted to read A Million Little Pieces and My Friend Leonard for a long time. I was quickly scrolling through reviews of Katerina on Goodreads when I marked it as “Currently Reading” and the first review I saw mentioned Frey’s controversy over A Million Little Pieces. Having been 10 years old at the time of the controversy, I hadn’t heard of it until now. But, after a research into the issue, it is evident that Katerina is semi- (if not fully) autobiographical, yet marketed as a novel. Frey often references problems that arose with his controversy – his character, Jay, also faced massive success from his embellished memoir after the endorsement from a famous talk show host (read: Oprah) and faced outrage and lawsuits after the truth came to the surface. And the cover of Jay’s first book also had a hand covered in little sprinkles… Seems suspicious to me. While I’m still interested in reading A Million Little Pieces, I think it will move further down my TBR pile.

Thank you to NetGalley and Simon & Schuster Canada for providing me with a copy of Katerina in exchange for an honest review.