I'm glad I read it, after all the talk I've heard about it both positive and negative. After reading it, my opinion is that Dustin is of course far from perfect, but also not the demon that some people have made him out to be.
The biggest faults I can find with him are, first, he uses a lot of gratuitous vulgarity in the book, particularly the f word, which could have been done without. Secondly, I did think it was in poor taste for him to brag about how many young women he had casual sex with.
On the other hand, I don't doubt that some of the complaints he has are justified, knowing Hollywood, such as the way child actors are exploited. He says wisely that he would not want any child of his to become a child actor. He felt he was excluded socially by the other members of the cast, due to them being quite a bit older than himself. That seems believable, knowing how immature and cliquish teen-agers can be. I think, that, combined with the fact that he was typecast as the nerd on the show made him feel like an outsider.
He does explain the difference between his own sexual activities and those of the other cast members though, in that all the relationships he had were completely consensual, whereas some of Mario's were not, and that he never promised anything more than casual sex, whereas he felt the other members were exchanging sexual favors for promotions.
He did feel disadvantaged by being typecast as a nerd, not because the character of Screech Powers wasn't likeable, he was, but Dustin felt it made it harder for him to get hired for other roles. One way he broke out of this, he explains was when he played a dislikeable character on the show Celebrity Fit Club. He said he enjoyed showing that he could play the role of a dislikeable character as well as a likeable one.
He also stated that not only Screech the nerd, but all of the characters on the original Saved By The Bell were stereotypes. I agree with him on that, I noticed that when I first watched the show. Although I think the show had many good points, the stereotypes were rather over the top.
Dustin refers to Mark Paul as the "Golden Child". Even though a natural brunette, Mark Paul's hair was dyed blond for the show. Was that really necessary? Like only blond boys can be "cool" or handsome?
Another complaint he had was that the whole cast was put on a diet because Tiffany started gaining some fat on her butt cheeks, even though the rest of the cast members were skinny.
Another complaint was that in The New Class, the writers put in a lot of homosexual innuendo between Screech and Mr. Belding. Dustin said he has nothing against people's sexual preferences, but though that putting that into the script was gratutitous, since Screech and Mr. Belding had always been known to be quite heterosexual.
All told, I don't think he is bitter toward his cast mates. He had his differences with them, but as they all grew and matured, they became closer. In the book, he had positive things as well as negative to say about them.
To me, the high points of the book were some of the humorous and often tender stories he told, such as about a litter of cats that he cared for. The way he described his relationship with Linda Mancuso was moving too. Of all the women he had relationships with, it is clear from the way he writes that she was the one he was most deeply in love with. Unfortunately, she died of breast cancer, as had his own mother at a very young age.
I would recommend this book to anyone, I think you will learn a lot from it.
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