Customer Reviews

Suck It, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I have always enjoyed G4's "Attack of the Show", and the extremely beautiful Olivia Munn has always been a big reason. I bought this book hoping it would be a collection of humorous essays in the vein of Sarah Silverman or Chelsea Handler. What a disappointment. I won't go to great lengths comparing the three women; I'll just say those two women are comics, and Olivia Munn is not. Olivia is primarily known for wearing sexy costumes and claiming to be a hot female geek.

Olivia goes to great lengths to make us feel sorry for her exclusion for different cliques starting in kindergarten. She comes off as completely self centered and unaware that this is a normal part of childhood. She also needs someone to tell her that nobody feels sorry for the ugly duckling once it has become a well paid, famous, frequently lusted after swan. Not exactly the tear jerker she seemed to think it would be. Revealing that she was a cheerleader and model during her school years also takes a lot of the sting out of her self pity.

Another annoying habit Olivia gives in to is revealing the ugliest traits of the nameless high powered Hollywood directors and producers she tried to court favors from in her early career. It astonishes me when a girl who jumps into giant pies in a French maid uniform for a very comfortable living whines about being pursued by the very men she has gone to great lengths to meet in hopes of having them forward her career. It's the natural order of things for her to take things from them, but offensive if they try to take things from her.

Perhaps the ugliest scene in this book is Olivia's tale of being a snot to her grandmother on the day of the lady's unexpected death, and her revelation that the family had to pull the plug on grandma because of Olivia's refusal (in her mid-teens no less) to perform CPR when the woman's brain was starved for oxygen. In Olivia's view this is a sad story about how grandma's death caused OLIVIA guilt.

Olivia seems (like a lot of young women) to think she's one of the guys because she likes video games and attends comicon. She's not. She is the stereotypical egotistical self centered princess that she complains about throughout the entire book. Her description of a drunken lesbian kiss outlines what you could see in any college dorm party anywhere in the US. Big deal, right? Olivia's view of run of the mill youthful experiment? In her view that story alone is worth the price of the book. It ain't.

But all that amounts to wanting to know more about Olivia and her book delivering that (even though it turns out she is not the cool, easy going chick she portrays on G4). In that way the book delivers. This book is not worth the money because it is not funny. I mean, seriously not funny. Nearly every chapter ends with an attempt at a one liner based on a call-back to something that was completely unfunny earlier in the chapter. They all fall flat... miserably flat in the way that makes you uncomfortable knowing this person probably thinks she's funny.

She's not.

I wasn't expecting something that was outstanding in how it cleverly used the English language. I was expecting pretty interesting stories about her life, geekdom, and behind-the-scenes stories from her travels on the web, television and film. I think we get a tiny bit of that, but it's written so conversationally and with so many expletives that it turns out feeling coarse, thrown together, and not as interesting as it could have been. I've been a fan of Ms. Lovely for many years... I loved AOTS and she made it so much better. Yes, as a sex symbol, but also as a geek with a great sense of humor. None of that really seems to have come through in this book. It feels forced here... on television or video, it feels natural.

In short, if you're a fan you'll get something out of it. Not a whole lot. If you're not a fan, you're going to be turned off by it. I really wish it was better. I got a digital copy, so I paid less. I'm glad I did that, sorry Olivia :/

The book is a can't-put-down, must read for Olivia Munn fans. If you're not a fan of Olivia, or don't know who she is, or even if you don't really know about the "World" she writes about- you're probably not going to enjoy this quite as much as the fan-boy/fan-girl. That's not to say it's a bad thing. She makes it very clear that that is what her book is all about.

Munn talks a lot about being the new kid in school, her upbringing, and some early Hollywood missteps. The book (Like Olivia) is all over the place a times and not very focused. The Hollywood stories and her family upbringing are the most illuminating- while sections like "The Ten Major Points of Olivia Munn's 2024 Presidential Campaign Platform" and "Princess Leia Tweets" feel like page fillers.

Chapter 18 "My Worst Day Ever" is clearly this best of the book, but is defused by having 4 pages of color photos breaking up the narrative. Whose ever decision that was should kick themselves in the shins.

"Suck It..." is not a book I would probably recommend to my next door neighboor, but it's a nice read for those of you who were going to get the book anyway.

I got this book as a birthday present and at first it seemed kinda cool but then after reading through it gave me a clear idea of who she is...not really a geek but pretending to be so that she can use our demographic as her platform to fame. Grammatically speaking the title itself admits that. She 'geeks' over hollywood, not sci-fi. So the term "Hollywood Geek" is reflective of her obsession with wanting to be famous. The title "Geek in Hollywood" would have meant she was a sci-fi kid trying to make it in Hollywood. She's dumb, but not as dumb as you if you buy this book. If you are a fan boy and need to buy it because she made you think she really likes you then go ahead, but seriously this poor excuse for comdey writing will be in the bargain books section soon enough, so don't feel obliged to pay full price for pages that will end up suck together under the bathroom sink with your collection of Hustlers anyways.

(She should have called it 14:59, LOL.)

I really wanted to like this book. I love Olivia Munn from G4 and Daily Show. I think she is hilarious and the idea of a beautiful geek is wonderful (brains rules!). I wanted to like this book, but I didn't. It's a biography that is cut up with short stories and I guess you would call them essays or advice columns. Munn's life story is interesting moving around and is very real explaining the life of a teenager trying to survive High School and what you will do to fit in at that age. From there, this is only appealing if you are a sci-fi male nerd between 16 and 28. Munn seems to forget or just not know that she has female fans. Chapters on how to please a women sexually don't appeal to women and neither does her female sexapades. The chapters on tweeting Star Wars is okay, but nothing I got excited over. Munn wasn't speaking to me and I knew that from the start. I didn't really laugh and I really, really wanted to. So if you are a guy born between 1995 and 1983 and know the difference between Bobba Fet and Jango Fet, you'll love this; if you have two X chromosomes, you won't.

Here's the thing: I REALLLLY like Olivia Munn. Like, really. But this is not a good book. I mean, after chapter 2 I had buyer's remorse. But I thought, "Hey, maybe it'll get better! Maybe it'll turn out good! Maybe I won't have to hate this book!" But I was wrong. Dead wrong.

It's not that it's a terrible book. It's just that it's mostly terribly boring.

I'm so sorry, Olivia. But this book is bad. I wish I could get my money back. Or a date with you. Either or both will work.

I do my best to not judge on looks, age, sex, sexual orientation, or any other superficial qualities, so when Munn started working at The Daily Show, I was excited to give her a chance as a correspondent-- not despite the fact that she's the hot Asian chick from G4 with the amazing hair and sweet gams, but BECAUSE of it. And some of her pieces on TDS have been downright inspired. I mean, she's no Sam Bee or John Oliver, but there's some definite potential there. I've been standing up for her to friends and family.

And then she let me down.

Unlike other reviewers, I didn't have a problem with Munn's sharing her rough elementary school and college stories. I actually found that they humanized her. The personal stuff was much more engaging than the pointless dating tips and the crap chapter on the zombie apocalypse. But my problems come in the form of superfluous comma use (I don't mind the typos; my own book has a few and I know they're not my fault. But we're talking commas after nouns and before verbs. Who edited this thing?) and the fact that she doesn't know the term "geek" from "nerd." If her whole schtick is that she is loved by geeks and is a geek herself, then how could she possibly use them interchangeably? Any geek will tell you, they're not the same.

But mostly it's this sentence: "I wouldn't call myself a feminist, but still." (See page 135, Chapter 17: Dating Tips to Totally Help You Score.") This is a dating tip that argues that men don't have to pay on dates. Alright, so she's assuming her audience is made completely of straight males, alienating me a bit. And yes, the cover photo and the back flap author photo should have warned me, but REALLY? A Daily Show correspondent, who, in the same book, defends the right to eat pie and wear super hero costumes, is proud of herself for skydiving and not going nude for Playboy, and argues that the press and television have a narrow definition of sexy (see page 216) doesn't consider herself a feminist? WTF? How does she not get that without feminism, there'd be no Daily Show and no one would pay her for her pithy observations on life? (Although yes, people would still pay her to dive into pie wearing a French maid outfit). Or did she just add that sentence in the middle of a feminist rant so her geeky male audience wouldn't feel intimidated by her feminism because, as she says herself, she's not a feminist?

And don't even get me started about her "thick thighs." If she thinks her thighs are thick, then her definition of thickness is narrow.

I fear that Munn will either fall off the face of the earth, a minor blip forgotten from the radar, or this book will embarrass the living poop out of her for years to come when she realizes how inane much of this book is and how she has no idea of what a goddamn feminist is.

Having said that, I'm still rooting for her. Come on, Olivia. Grow a clue. And get someone else to proofread any future manuscripts.

This book had been sitting in the break room for a couple of days when, faced with 3 hours of exam proctoring that necessitated only my presence and ability to respond to requests to go to the toilet, I picked it up to browse. I picked it up because I liked the subtitle. I finished the book before the exam was over.
I had never heard of Olivia Munn, but apparently she's a minor video star in the United States. (She claims to have been a model in Japan, where I live, but no one I asked had ever heard of her.) From internal evidence, it is not clear if her fame comes from broadcast, cable, or Internet video; it is assumed that the reader is familiar with her.
Hence, as a book, this volume is somewhat interesting for what it tells readers about US celebrity culture and the exploitation of it. I also amused myself by trying to piece together exactly who this woman might be and what her appeal might be; unfortunately, that is likely to not be a task facing most potential customers for the book.
I would recommend two other books (Have A Nice Day: A Tale of Blood and Sweatsocks and Brooke Book) exploiting celebrity status because they show some thought and have better photographs, respectively. Despite Ms. Munn's having relied on a ghost- or co-writer, "Suck it, Wonder Woman" is tedious and repetitive. Frequently, I cannot make sense of the sentences. That, however, hardly matters, as Munn has nothing of any import to say to anyone.

Maybe somewhere deep down Olivia Munn is a sad and insecure woman who is afraid to really let loose on how she feels and what she thinks of herself. Perhaps she thinks it's too sad or depressing to show her fans her real wounds and personal scars. Or worse, maybe she's just nothing but a hot girl with nothing to say like every other bubble head on the internet with their own blog accounts. Either way, it's not worth the price of this book to find out and ponder on that notion.

I was expecting a lot more..and at first I got it....I don't know Olivia Munn but I saw a kindred spirit in her self-deprecating humor and intense love of wonder woman- Yay!. But i'm almost done...and maaaan, i'm done. Her "feminist" appeal got drowned out by chants on youtube and she jumped into a giant whipped cream pie in a french maid uniform and later fellatied an unsuspecting hot dog.

Her self-deprecation was defeated by all of her many many, many....many gratuitious body shots and the random useless stories about celebrities hitting on her..."Will Shatner said I was hot and I didnt even know who Lil Jon was!" um ...oookay?

I dunno, she's a smart girl for sure and very beautiful no doubt, but those things don't an author make. I would say if you love her already ( and you're a 23 year old GUY) go ahead and read it. This book is for you...I'm going to try to make it thru the end, but this one may just have to be returned to the library. Sorry Olivia.

Oh, yeah and some of her descriptions of the black celebs sounded a bit...non racially sensitive to me. But whatev.