Booky Wook 2: This Time It's Personal

It is an amazing read for anyone who wants to taste British humor and obviously Russell Brand's big worded vocabulary.

The second autobiographical instalment (I read the first one a long time ago but recall enjoying it), this is a verbose (but pleasantly so, I think), egotistical romp with a bit of musing and soul-searching thrown in. If you dislike Russell Brand this book will not change your mind and is not worth your time, unless you want a bit of misguided fuel for your death threats. If you like him and you're aware of/accommodating of the kind of antics you'll expect to read about then go for it, you'll probably enjoy it. It did manage to make me cringe a bit in places but I did enjoy the book overall.

Book 1 was very amusing, as we saw a young Brand prepared to take risks. (Indeed, risks were an inevitability, considering his life was a train wreck at the time) This time, our Russ has developed into a palm-pressing member of the Hollywood pack, and care is taken to name drop whilst exercising caution and acknowledge how Pink and sundry other stars are 'Great fun and really nice'. There's also a bit of a guilty back-story/guilt-therapy exercise, where I think what he's trying to say is that he didn't support his best friend in a time of crisis, lest it compromise Brand's all consuming rise to a stereotypical 'proper' star.He is a shallow man is our Russ (funny how stars start reading and spouting on about philosophy when they're desperate to appear all deep & stuff isn't it) - the quite horrible description of his 'Do you want to have sex? No? Go away then. Next!' approach to - let's not call it chatting up - asking women for sex raised an eyebrow, but as he is fond of reminding us, he's not doing anyone any real harm, in the 'Well, at least he's not murdering/mugging people' sense, and the above does not detract from the fact, he is a funny man in his stand up work, even if his life is now a bit beige.

My Booky Wook was a masterpiece - hugely funny, shocking and bare-bones honest. I can't help but feel that Russell has really censored himself in this one. It's just not as interesting as before. We all know that he's slept with loads of women and that becomes a bit boring after a while - as boring as he comes to find it before he meets Katie Perry, which is mainly the subject of this book. I partly bought this book because I practice Transcendental Meditation and I was hoping that he'd go into that, but he only mentions it in one sentence so hopefully that will be mentioned later on in another book. I still love you Russell but it didn't thrill me like the first one did!

Mostly amusing autobiography of Brand's rise to fame. Very quick and clever guy. Comes out fighting re: "Sachsgate", which I always wished he'd done from the very beginning. Of course, he sometimes comes across as an arrogant so-and-so, but then that's because he almost certainly is. Fortunately a very amusing one though. Only minus is for the rather soppy bits where he goes on about Katie Perry. Took it on holiday and it was perfect for reading while drinking on the beach as it can be picked up and put down very easily.

Nothing wrong with most things in it.If you keep an open mind.Otherwise it's the gloating of a junkie.