100 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
R-rated, Honest Comedy, March 10, 2009
This review is from: My Booky Wook: A Memoir of Sex, Drugs, and Stand-Up (Hardcover)
I found *My Booky Wook* laugh-out-loud funny, but not for the faint of heart. Brand's honesty is almost child-like at times, except that he's dealing with very adult topics like depression, sex addiction, and drug use.
That honesty was precisely what made the read so compelling for me. Brand has a unique gift for non-pompous self-reflection, and refuses to bowdlerize his life just because it might offend some. His description of what it's like to take heroin deserves a place right up there with The Velvet Underground's song. It's loving and funny and unapologetic, while still acknowledging the horrific damage that addiction brings.
Brand's prose, like his personality, is deliberately flamboyant. I found myself feeling that, by all logical reasoning, I should be put off by his deliberately Dickensian flourishes. But self-knowledge saves all, and Brand combines his rococo prose with colloquial diction, self-mockery, and traces of his real, non-elite accent. In this regard, I kept thinking that Brand's style was akin to that of a very dirty P.G. Wodehouse.
The result was (dare I say it) addictive. I couldn't put the damned book down, and after finishing it I had to immediately lend it out so I wouldn't re-read it a million times.
Like all great comedians, Russell Brand turns his personal pain into comedy. Given the variety of individual senses of humor, it's impossible to guarantee that you'll find this book funny. But if you're not easily offended, you'll probably be laughing. Even if you are easily offended, you can treat this as a very honest memoir of sex and drug addiction, and be shocked that Brand tells it as a funny story.
[...] -- a site about humor and society
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28 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Funny & bitter at the same time....brilliant!, January 21, 2008
I did not know who Russell Brand was (no...I never watched "Big Brother") till I checked into a London hotel for the holidays and saw him on a holiday talk show. He is hysterically funny in a sharp, no-nonsense, "no sacred cows" manner. This book is a memoir written in a rather disorderly manner but nontheless extremey funny. His recollections and comments are fresh and at time tear jerking. A fast read, it kept me up all night. Even Americans who do not know who he is will enjoy his recollections of experiences growing up, his several stints in rehab (for various causes) and show-biz trials. Really enjoyable, I can't wait for him to write something new!
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enter his cloak of love, April 29, 2009
Russel and I just flew across country together. I giggled the whole way, although he was certainly frustrating at times. Unfortunately, he was only in my kindle. (It was a bit embarrassing when the flight attendant wanted to see what I was reading, and it was a pretty raunchy part for a silver haired woman to have exposed on her lap, so to speak.)
Russel, I love you! You're a mess, but damn can you write! So far this is the only book on my Kindle requiring me to look up the meaning of words. YAY! I thought I knew what avuncular meant, but I was wrong. He made my flight fly by and increased my vocabulary! I hardly even noticed the seat in front of me grazing my forehead and the guy next to me taking up half my seat. Be well, Russell. My love to your Mum.
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