Customer Reviews

Feel

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

 

 

I am an unabashed fan of Robbie Williams, I love his voice, his swagger and his mischief with reporters. I picked up this book as a fan, but it turned out to be much more interesting than a simple biography.

Chris Heath spent (by my guess) upwards of a year with Robbie Williams, sometimes living with him, sometimes through correspondence. The result of that time together is this book. The book doesn't really go into drawing conclusions about Robbie as a person or a professional, but rather it shows us a very thorough snapshot of life as a mega-celebrity (albeit an unapologetically self-centered one). He shows us behind the facade of Robbie Williams, the over-the-top charismatic performer, and gives readers a disturbing glimpse as to what its like to be Robbie everyday.

Robbie, from what I can tell from the book seems to be a reasonably normal guy in his late 20s. He has issues, especially with social anxiety and depression, and is a recovering addict, but he comes across as pretty funny, charming and generally vivacious. Chris Heath shows us the dark side of being a mega-celebrity, Robbie is constantly hounded and haunted by false tabloid reports, he is chased incessantly by paprazzi and he often deals with fans who feel like Robbie "owes" them something for helping to make him a star. Through this Robbie proves to be quite resilient, extremely creative and reasonably productive. There is little gossipy writing and the book focuses more on the process it takes to turn Robbie Williams the person into Robbie Williams the persona.

I really enjoyed this book. I found it to be a fascinating and well written character study and I don't think it should be relegated only to the legions of Robbie fans. I always wished he was a bigger star in the States so he would tour here, but after reading this, I don't begrudge him the relative anonymity he enjoys here.

I couldn't put this book down. It's a fascinating insight into Robbie Williams, one of the greatest artists of our time I think. I am so surprised that Americans are so slow to appreciate his talent. His solo work has proven time and time again that he is SO much more than an ex boy band member. This book is a kind of journal kept by Heath who spent lots of time with Williams. Robbie is complex but a genius - you only have to listen to his music to know that. He certainly has issues (who doesn't?) but it's added to the depth of his musical talent. I've been a fan ever since I bought the Albert Hall DVD. I've now got three more of his CD's - it won't be the last.

Note to Robbie: Please come to South Africa - at least we recognise brilliance when we see it!!!

At a time when more and more people seem to court 'celebrity', this book is forewarning of the unwanted consequences of fame: media intrusions, obsessive fans and inevitably self absorption and self doubt.

You don't need to like Robbie Williams, or even know who he is, to appreciate this book. It is much more than a biography. This is not the place to look for titillation or scandal on the man (try the papers). It is instead a philosophical yet highly readable account of what can happen when a normal but talented person finds extreme success.

I found the writing non-judgemental. The reader is free to make up their own mind on the merits of the main character, if they feel the need to do so at all, and I disagree with a previous reviewer that the text is sycophantic.

Frankly, if this is fame, who'd want it?

Amazing account into the life of somebody who is far beyond rich and famous... he is on another level. It is great to see a first hand account of the person under the persona and what it must be like to live in the spolight. I would recommend this to anybody who is delusioned into thinking fame and celebrity is something to aspire to. Not just for Rob fans but anybody who wants a good read.

To Amazon,

Please can we have this book on Kindle !!!!

I loved the book. Very interesting, and funny. Unfortunately, it is very sad at times. I am not big on tabloids so much of the info in the book was new for me. This info probably never got to the US in the first place though.

I only picked this book up because it's on the shortlist for Richard and Judy's "Best Read" of the year award in England.Out of curiosity I thought I'd read them all 10 of them and I have been happily surprised by the quality of some of these books.If you haven't read them yet you are in for a treat when you read "The Promise of Happiness","Cloud Atlas", "An American Boy" and "Shadow of the Wind", but this I just found tedious.

To read 50 pages, no 5 pages, of tedious,childlike behaviour is bad enough, but for it to go on for nearly 500 pages is sheer torture. This type of book suffers from the obvious problem of the writer's relationship to his subject. Preferably the writer should be completely detached and critical but I don't believe this to be the case in this book. I suppose you get a fair idea of the hideousness and pointless nature of a celebrity's life and yet I'm not too sure that Heath's subtext is about the demeaning role played by Williams' sycophantic crew of helpers and minders. A role of course played by Heath himself.

The book labours under the obvious fallacy that a popstar has anything interesting to say about the world,when quite plainly Williams is no more likely to be any more interesting than your local window cleaner.In fact if this book is anything to go by you'd be much better off chatting to your window cleaner or postman.The book was obviously only written because Williams is famous and has zillions of fans and consequently the expectation that the book would sell well.To that extent I presume Heath's commercial calculation has paid off nicely.Heath constantly justifies himself throughout the book,but I fail to see how 500 repetitive pages describing a young man's life can be called a biography. Interestingly Heath first hooks up with Williams to write a magazine article about him and I would say this book could comfortably have been condensed into 5 pages. It might just possible have been fleetingly interesting then.The good thing about the book is the demonstration of how fatuous and mind-numbingly dull a celebrity can be, something I would suggest is true of most of them.

For fans of Williams or celebrity gossip I'd guess the book is a must read,but for someone like myself, for whom Williams is no more important than my local postman, the book was a tedious and boring read. Boy was I glad when I'd finished it.