Customer Reviews

Bodybuilders, Drugs & Sex

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Everybody who has ever used a gym should read this book.
This is the story of the bodybuilding and fitness industry, and the people involved, of the last 30 years, written as a work of fiction. For some this story can be disgusting, for others just controversial, but the author's inside view is very detailed. He gives hints at almost every important people in bodybuilding in the last 30 years. Minichiello knows what is all about, and he spares no words to condemn the tremendous greed of the people involved and the related use of steroids. The use of weights to stay healthy has turned out to become a dangerous competition for money and power.
Many young people, trying to emulate the champions they see in the magazines, use steroids and other drugs and seriously endanger their health, if not their lives.
Some people reading this book are not going to believe it, because they love the fairy tale of the poor country boy who come from Europe and become the great, famous, rich champion, who earnd his money with his smile, his drug-free bodybuilding and his movies. Wake up, my friends: the reality is much more hard to endure: your champion is a drug users, male prostitute, and greedy competitor for which any means will do to reach his goals. Enjoy it!

This story of bodybuilding was an interesting, delightful read. I recommend it to anyone interested in the bodybulding world, or about Arnold.

Yes, the quality of writing for this novel is very, very poor and it bears mentioning at the outset. The story is itself interesting for anyone involved in the sport of male bodybuilding, or an admirer of the sport. Hiring an English lit. student to do some copy-editing would have been an easily accessible, wise and cost-effective investment on the part of the author and it is very odd that he did not think to do this seeing that he self-published the book.

The story is interesting and deals with many familiar people in the bodybuilding world, including a character who one can imagine is the current governor of California. This character used his appearance, which was built on the copious use of illegal steroids, to prostitute himself to wealthy businessmen who not only gave him money but also advice on the business world. I had also heard stories similar to this on the grapevine over the years. Do rumours validate rumours? Perhaps not, but I, David B "all around consumer", sense there is a shred of truth here.

As one can imagine parallels between the main character and a very popular Republican politician in California, the book becomes fascinating reading. So interesting in fact that you can almost forgive the lousy writing, but actually you can't, because the writing is perhaps the worst I have ever seen published in print.

If the book were to be re-released and with the benefit of a good copywriter, Minichiello would have a far more successful book, but would probably may be at risk in some way for surreptitously 'outing' a popular Republican politician. Because in all reality, you cannot grow a huge, extremely muscular, competition level body like Mr.Universe or Mr.Olympia, without using illegal and expensive steroids. This would cost lots of money ($hundreds to $thousands or so+ per month) and where would a young immigrant without any professional training get such resources and more to invest in real estate? Certainly not by working in a gym.

A fascinating read for anyone interested in the bodybuilding world, the entertainment industry and California politics.

This book really opened up my eyes to the world of bodybuilding. There is so much behind the scenes information in here that will amaze you!

While agreeing with the other reviewer that the author does not have great writing skills, this book is an easy read (aimed at your average musclehead?)and a good page turner as anyone with even the most basic knowledge of the history of bodybuilding/physical culture can spot the thinly disguised real characters in this book. For anyone who doesn't know about much of the subject matter in this book it will be a real eye-opener.

The centre page photos of the author with various celebrities are a major detraction from this book being taken seriously as a novel.

You could easily read this book in half a day so its ideal for squeezing into the space between all those long hours in the gym. Alternatively, save it for a wet public holiday when the gym is closed.

I've seen 12 year old's with better writing skills.I agree with the reader from Boston,Mr. Minichiello pretty much wrote Arnold's story and changed the names and put a sexual twist on it.(...)

Although the author, basically just wrote the Schwarzenegger biography (while changing the names) his poor story-telling abilities made it almost impossible to get through. The book (and particularly the many photos of the author) seemed more like an ego piece. If someone wants a much better telling of this story, I would recommend Wendy Leigh's Arnold: an Unauthorized Biography -- at least she had the balls to use most of the characters true names.

Although this book is supposed to be nonfiction, I could plainly see one very well-known bodybuilder all over the place within it. I was hoping this would be an entertaining, informative book about the truth behind the scenes of bodybuilding. Instead, it reads more like a homosexual romance novel. The book was self-published, and as is consequently the case with most self-published books, lacking is grammatical and spelling corrections.