Customer Reviews

Behind the Bell

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(8)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

It's the worst book I've ever read. Ever.

Despite the book itself being horrible, there clearly was no editor. The grammar was appallingly bad. The former copy editor in me wanted to take a red pen to it even though it was a library book. Words were misspelled. He used idiotic words such as douchenozzle to make a point. He also writes moronic, vague sentences, then follows them with the sentence "What I mean to say is this." (Say what you mean! Use your words!) The literary violations extend beyond letting the author have artistic control. The most egregious error: when the word horses**t needed a hypen to split it onto two lines, the hyphen appeared between the s and the h. Yes, horses-hit. How does that even happen in the post-typewriter world?

When I could get past the cringing from his complete misuse of me, myself and I, as well as that, which who and whom, the memoir was unnecessarily mean and condescending to every other human being in the world, past, present and future. Diamond showed no perspective, decency or rationality. He writes off people he met as a child. Yes, I understand you thought Fred Savage was spoiled when he was eight. Does it mean he still is? Perhaps, but none of us can stand the scrutiny of the actions of our eight-year-old selves. He boasted about his own sexual exploits while deriding others for it. Although he is ridiculously misogynistic, he seems to hold sexual adventure against everyone but himself. Yes, this derision includes the women he slept with; he's incredibly hateful to them.

I finished the book, but it was uncomfortable to read. I'm not a prudish person, but it was hard to read the words of someone so clearly unable to let go of his hatred for so many people, places, situations and things. Diamond needs therapy. He needs an editor. He needs a fact checker. Mostly, he needs to find something to enjoy. He needs to find some sense of meaning in his life. It was uncomfortable to read because he's a human being.

This is basically a few hundred pages of Screech trying to convince the reader that he is cool.

this book was absolute garbage! the writing was god awful...not to mention there were multiple typos and even an entire paragraph printed twice in a row! grammatical errors...odd spacing...and just all together awful writing...name dropping...total redundancy....i cannot stress enough it is one of the worst reads ive ever attempted ...i actual started to just skim til i saw mark paul or tiffani's names to possibly get some juicy gossip....however i believe he used to premise of telling lots of behind the scenes stories to sell books when the rest of the cast is not mentioned as often as u would think....lots of time spent on his boring childhood friends and verbal pissing contest with his cast mates that im not sure they are aware they are a part of!! ok we get it screech...you got laid too! grow up

Dustin Diamond is obviously an incredibly bitter guy, about stuff that happened around 20 years ago. Although I'm sure some of it is true, and the other cast members were rude to him, after reading this book, who wouldn't be?! Dustin is clearly not a guy in it to make friends. He seems to hate Mario Lopez and Tiffani Thiessen the most. Interestingly, Tiffani is the one who probably went on to achieve the highest amount of success - not surprisingly, Dustin has nothing good at all to say about her. In the case of Tiffani and Elizabeth especially, these girls were teenagers when the show was around, I don't think anyone should be judged forever based on their high school years, and I don't think a guy in his 30's should be dissecting the behavior of teenage girls the way Dustin does. Tiffani is 36 years old now, I don't think that Dustin's opinion of her as a 16 year old has any relevence whatsoever, and it certainly doesn't change my own favorable view of her. Dustin calls Tiffani a slut, and then goes on to detail the fact that he has slept with thousands of girls and hooked up on "every bed on the SBTB set"... cool? Good for you buddy. Tiffani is on a hit USA show, married and pregnant, what are you doing Dustin?

I gave the book 2 stars because it is always interesting for me to hear what a castmate of one of my favorite shows has to say about it, but the only interesting parts for me are about the show and they are few and far between. He talks ALOT about being drunk and hooking up at Disneyland - stuff that I couldn't care less about. To sum it up, Dustin hates Mario for being mean and self-absorbed, is jealous of and hates Tiffani for being a "princess" and a "slut," thinks that Elizabeth is pathetic, hated Mark-Paul ("the golden boy") but thinks he later redeemed himself, and thinks Lark is bizarre and was abused. He also thinks he was typecast (duh), his parents took most of his money, and he doesn't think the entertainment industry is good for kids - I just saved you $20.

I am a die-hard Saved By The Bell fan. I own all seasons on dvd and was beyond ecstatic to read about a tell-all book coming out. I was looking forward to juicy behind the scene hook-ups, scandals, in-depth behind the scene glimpses at this popular show etc.
Instead, I had a poorly edited book filled with Dustin Diamond's sexual conquests. I feel embarrassed for any female he mentioned by name in there. Clearly, he knows how inferior he was compared to the rest of the cast which is why every chapter had some reference to the size of his "unit". He tried to write a memoir detailing the cruelty of the cast, their sexual looseness, their pot use but in reality, it read like a little boy still whining because the big kids didn't want to play with him.
I was hoping for little stories behind each episode, and cast hook ups, and little gems that we never would have known about. Instead, I read a book about a boy who has yet to become a man no matter how many "chicks" he banged at Disneyland.
Once a loser, always a loser. I just wish I didn't have to shell out $21 to verify what I already knew.

I really wanted to like this book, really, I did. Unfortunately, I could not get past the dull lifeless stories, poor grammar, and misspelled words. The plot, well there was none and the point of this book, thats lost too. As I read further into the book, I could not help feel more and more bad for Dustin. Two things are apparent: Dustin had and still has major jealousy issues with his former cast members, and he was completely out of the loop on what the cast members lives were like all those years on the set. The lifeless stories are more like speculations, and the speculations appear to be more of a generalized outside view of what was going on. A mute sound guy working on SBTB could have written this book. At some points I even wondered if the cast members had ever had real conversations with Dustin. Dustin was younger than his cast mates, and unfortunately they didn't hang out with him, and it is quite obviously Dustin did not have any genuine connections with them. There is not one single intimate moment of friendship, laughs, or even dramatic rifts in these lame indolent flashbacks he calls stories. Unfortunately Dustin does not know how to write, he constantly tells the reader instead of showing. There is no hollywood glamor, and to be quite frank nothing too crazy worth writing about. A book with only speculations which do not hold up very well. One even has to even wonder if his own personal but brief stories( or rather sentence statements) about "getting laid" are even true. I found my self often saying aloud, "yeah.. right" and then scoffing. He does not name names or give real descriptions, and he lacks talent in description when recounting his past. You never get a sense of what the cast was really like, and only have a poor recounted outside view from a man with bitter grudge towards them. So if you want to read about a bitter Screech, who considers him self to be a professional actor, and was at best acquaintances with the cast, this is a book for you. However if you are itching for the real dirt, and juice, I would wait till one the cast members who was apart of the gang on and off the screen decides to write a book and gets a great ghost writer to help.

If you're reading this book because you're a SBTB fan, you will enjoy it. If you're looking for sex scandals involving the cast, forget it, but there are good stories about what else went on behind the scenes at the show. The problem is that at least one of these stories is so patently false that it calls into question all the others. Several times in the book, Diamond refers to Elizabeth Berkley's participation in the movie Showgirls and its effect on her role on SBTB. According to Diamond, the movie was released during the last season's shooting of SBTB and resulted in Berkley choosing not to continue her role as Jessie Spano in the latter part of the season (the Tori episodes). He also recounts that the atmosphere was awkward for her around the SBTB cast and crew after the movie failed. None of this can be true.

Showgirls was released in September 1995. The last episode of SBTB featuring Berkley was the "Graduation" episode which aired in May 1993...over two years before Showgirls was released. Given that the Tori episodes were filmed months after the Jessie/Kelly episodes, the span between Berkley's final SBTB shoot and the Showgirls release is probably more like three years.

So could Diamond maybe have meant that the Showgirls failure caused her to take a cameo, rather than a full role, in the Saved by the Bell Wedding in Las Vegas movie, and that the atmosphere on that set was awkward as a result of the Showgirls failure? Again, not possible. That tv movie aired in October 1994, almost a full year before Showgirls hit the theaters.

I don't believe that Diamond intentionally fabricated the story, not when it is so obviously false. The only other conclusion to be drawn is that he does not have a very reliable memory, which causes me to wonder how many of the stories in this book are also false.

After reading all of the reviews on here, I honestly expected this book to be a lot worse than it was. Granted, I took this book out of the library and didn't spend a cent on it. I probably would have given this book less stars if I had actually spent money on it. I am a huge SBTB fan and have seen every episode at least five times (no exaggeration here!) so I just had to read the book. In general, I feel that if you are not a SBTB fan, you will definitely not enjoy this book. If you are a SBTB fan, like myself, this is a must read.

Pros:

-You learn a lot about what it's like to be a Hollywood Star. Diamond discusses child labor laws and how they impact his working hours.

-You learn a lot about what it's like to work on a television show. Diamond says that while "bloopers" are fun for the audience to watch, they cost the network lots of money. Diamond discusses a typical M-F work week. He says that filmed each episode twice. One show was recorded in front a studio audience and that same show was filmed only in front of cameras (no audience).

-I like how Diamond is honest and he's not holding anything back here. I don't know if we'll ever have access to a book this candid ever again.

-There's some interesting trivia. I found it interesting that the writers tried to incorporate the actors' and actresses' real lives into the show. Diamond says that Lopez was a state wrestling champion and Thiesson constantly won beauty pageants. These qualities are incorporated into the characters. It's also interesting to learn how many of the episodes refer to "inside jokes" among writers and production staff. Another piece of interesting trivia is that "Slater's Friend" (this is when Arnie died) was the least-aired episode of SBTB. Additionally, it was interesting to learn what the deal was with the "Tori episodes." I always wondered this. Basically, Tori replaced Elizabeth and Tiffany when they did not sign contracts. However, the graduation episodes, which included Elizabeth and Tiffany, had already been filmed. According to Diamond, during the Tori episodes, the audience was supposed to assume that Jessie and Kelly were still at Bayside taking classes.

Cons:

-The book does not flow at all. Granted, my writing doesn't flow either...but I'm not writing a book!

-Not a lot of content. I often found myself skimming the pages looking for the content and meaning.

-Diamond puts EVERYONE down. This isn't good for anyone's morale. Although we all have flaws, everyone has strengths as well. Diamond is very hard on others. For example, he puts Lark down because she's quiet and keeps to herself. He puts Mark-Paul down a lot. He refers to Mark-Paul as the "Golden Child." Diamond is clearly jealous of Mark-Paul! He's very critical of Mark-Paul throughout the book. He puts Mark-Paul down for urinating outside when he wasn't allowed to use the bathroom inside. I didn't feel that this was that big of a deal but Diamond keeps referring to this incident.

-Diamond doesn't seem to have much integrity. He writes about St. Peter and his wife slept in separate beds. I don't think this is appropriate. I wouldn't want someone to publish a book that mentions my sex life!

-There's a lot of writing that just takes us space. He spends a lot of time discussing the time he spent in Disneyland. Very boring and this just takes up space! I skimmed these chapters...

-A lot of the book is speculation without facts to back it up. I'm not sure how much of this book is true. Diamond writes that he's slept with 2,000 women, which I question. He also writes how Mark-Paul and Tiffani were called into Engel's office. Here, he makes a lot of speculations about what was happening.

Hopefully this review is helpful. I definitely wouldn't suggest buying this book. But if you're a die-hard SBTB fan, it's worth it to sign it out from your local library.

First, the high points. Dustin Diamond does explain, surprisingly well, the mechanics of a daytime sitcom as well as what it was like to be a child actor. He also does occasionally have some flashes of insight on the Hollywood mentality which are quite touching. Unfortunately, those are the only high points (maybe ten pages total).

The low points (without spoiling). The writing, itself, is poor. The language is gratuitously vulgar. The book is poorly edited with numerous usage errors and entire paragraphs simply repeated. Diamond's approach to women and relationships is tasteless. He's clearly bitter towards his castmates and his stories "behind the bell" are largely speculative and unsubstantiated.

I was really disappointed. A poorly written outburst by an emotionally retarded washout.

After reading this book, I believed that writing a review of it would be the easiest thing in the world; indeed, the book sets itself up so frequently to be lambasted that if I wanted I could simply open a page, copy a paragraph word-for-word, and let that paragraph stand on its own as an indication of the book's quality (or gapingly awful lack thereof). I would rather not do this; I prefer to actually try and synthesize my thoughts into some sort of cohesive narrative, something Diamond has clearly never attempted.

Be that as it may, I find it impossible to actually construct a critical evaluation of this book. I could pick out one problem or another and examine why it makes the book so terrible, but to me that suggests that if such a problem were fixed then it would make the book at least marginally better. This is impossible. There is nothing that can be done to make this book enjoyable. Every second you spend reading this wretched thing will be agony. I mean what I say: there is nothing that can be done to save this book. The only possible way to make this book slightly less tortuous would be to fix the numerous technical errors in each chapter, i.e. paragraphs that are repeated in their entirety, misplaced hyphens, paragraph breaks that have absolutely no business being there. This would not improve the quality of the book one single bit, but it would make for a quicker, smoother read, and that's something you will desperately need as you work your way through this pitiful man's whiny tome of self-indulgence.

If there was any reason that I would recommend this book, it would be because it acts like a certain type of vaccination against terrible writing. Once you're finished with it, and you stare slack-jawed and drooling at the last page, your mind dull and senseless due to the terrifyingly miserable work of 99% fiction and 1% unreliable memories you have just read---once all of that is behind you, you will know what bad writing is. It will be ingrained into the very fiber of your being. If anything can be said for Dustin Diamond, it's that he has written a work that doubles as a composition textbook---every page of said textbook containing style, grammar, construct and stories that you are to never, ever, ever emulate. Ever.