Customer Reviews

What If I Had Never Tried It: The Autobiography

5 star:		(22)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The people that wrote the previous reviews are probably not hardcore motorcyclists or competitors, therefore I am dismissing what negativity they have to say about this book. So I challenge each of you to read it for yourself and draw your own conclusions, but these are my thoughts on it.
This book is an insite to the start of Rossi's career and family as well as his evolution to becoming a champion. All too often people will say that "it's easy for him" or "he doesn't have to work that hard at winning" when the truth is that his choices, his decisions and his methods are what allowed him to develop into a champion.
As a professional motorcycle racer and competitor (who has won amatuer roadracing championships) I found this book incredibly enthralling and motivating to the point that many times I had a tough time putting it down. Rossi's story about his coming of age, challenges and decisions can also be applied to nearly any area of your life. It's all about making the right decisions and surrounding yourself with the right people; the ones that have the ability to help you become successful. It's about facing challenges in the face of adversity and overcoming them. It's about bucking the naysayers and coming out on top. Rossi (and his co-author) put a lot a emotion into the book and you can practically hear him speaking in his broken english as you read the book.
I found this book to be a worthwhile read, and while the ending did leave a bit to be desired it was still phenomonal. It might have also been that I wanted to read more or it might also be because his legacy is yet to come to an end. Regardless though, it is an excellent inflection to his life and times.
This book is an insite to a world champion racer who has worked very hard to get where he is. I highly reccomend it to anyone who is looking for motivation or insite as to what makes a champion tick.

I'm not actually even finished with the book yet (50 - 60 pages to go) but I had to write in and say that this is an amazing book. It's really good to read about Rossi's detailed feelings about the companies he has won championships for and about companies who he was thinking of moving to and companies that he started off with. He goes into a good amount of detail about the things that mean a lot to him and definitely clears some things up if you might have lingering questions. I'd recommend this to any Rossi fan... then again, if you're a Rossi fan, you should already own this book.

Really interesting and well written. I read this ages ago and finally got around to doing a review. I'm not really a race fan but I love a well written autobiography and in the wide realm of sports biographies and autobiographies, this one is outstanding. Even if you arn't into sport. The book is easy reading and the writer uses a chatty, conversational style throughout. I'd recommend it to anyone just as a good autobiography, regardless if they knew who rossi was or not.

Good book, it is a little fragmented skipping from one thought to another then back to the original thought later in the book, but hey the dood is a motorcycle god not a writer. If you appriciate Rossi and his love for life than you will enjoy hearing his stories. If you are looking for a literary masterpiece move on.

When I first got this book I figured it would be just another racer writing a book for publicity. Then I thought about Rossi's feelings on celebrity status and gave it a go ahead. Wow, it is so well written. I cannot read Italian or I would give it a go to read as it was by the World Champion. The translation seems to be spot on and is just a book that [..] in till the end, and I still reread it. Well to be honest it only took me about 9 hours, straight albeit, to read it. Lots of thumbs up!

Damian

I expected this book to follow some chronological order of events. It doesn't. It skips around and often doublebacks on itself recounting some facts several times. It sometimes feels like a padded highschool paper, which could easily have been half the size with better editing. However the most interesting tidbits, like Rossi's switch from Honda to Yamaha, rivalry with Biaggi, childish shinnanigans, etc. are all covered.

If you are a Rossi fan, you will enjoy this book, however a literal masterpiece it is not.

I am a MotoGP fan who always admired Rossi the rider but thought he was a bit of an ego maniac. I never really liked Rossi the guy until I read this book. He gives a picture of his life from childhood through his all important development to present (near). There are many facinating tid bits from his childhood in Italy to the near impossible to manage super-stardom. He also shares some of the behind the scenes of MotoGP, his rivalries and big move from Honda to Yamaha.

I am no literary critic but I can say the book is personal and warm, very conversational. It'll make you laugh, it'll make you think. It may change your mind about who Rossi really is. Great book for any motorsport fan or interested reader.

This book is a LONG read. I don't know if the translation got lost, but it was painful. I don't know if Rossi actually penned the verse, but it comes across as poorly written and not at all thought out.

His stories are all over the place, and he tends to say the same thing over and over again, but in different ways.

On the plus side, it does help explain a bit about Rossi, and what he's about.

This book brings us straight back to his days as a child, a teenager, and a motorcycle racer.. A great read into what goes on in his mind, although some of his life's choices that were mentioned seems a bit too forceful or unreal; perhaps a bit fake.. but again, he is a world champion and world champions have a record of knowing what they want to do from a young age.

This book is vividly Rossi. I enjoyed it and like the fact he shared some of his private life.

Every once in a while a sports figure comes along that completely dominates the sport, raising the bar so that what comes after bears little relationship to what went before. Tiger Woods did this in golf. And Valentino Rossi has done it in motorcycle racing.

If such fame, such publicity hadn't come from being the very best in a competitive field, there wouldn't be nearly enough story to justify an autobiography at such an early age.

But such fame did come about. And Rossi's story is one of living at the peak of a sport. It is a story of negeotiations involving fortunes. It is a story of dealing with large companies with an awful lot of money, of engineering, of pressure.

It's also a story of working with the Japanese. One story he tells is of the Japanese never saying no. I worked for a Japanese company. 'Maybe' means no. 'Yes' means maybe. 'Here it is' means yes.

All in all a delightful book.