My S**t Life So Far
by Frankie Boyle
Out of all the celebrity memoirs available out there that we could have picked to read in our Book Group, we ended up with Frankie Boyle’s!
For anyone who hasn’t seen the comedy panel game ’Mock the Week’ on BBC2, he’s a foul-mouthed Glaswegian comic who can be relied upon to be cringemakingly funny and offensive to all. His new sell-out tour which is currently underway around the UK is called ‘I would happily punch every one of you in the face’!
I thought it would be very much a ‘ladlit’ memoir with a bad taste joke on every page, and I actually read all 291 pages looking for them – they were few and far between. Instead, the whole thing was totally b-o-r-i-n-g. Frankly his life hasn’t been interesting enough. The writing was rather repetitive and childish; also without his verbal delivery style, his humour doesn’t really translate to the page so well.
How did it go down with our Book Group?
Well most of us found him to be obsessed with w**nking and not good with women; a young man who (formerly) spent most of his time being wasted on booze or ecstasy. He seems to hate almost everything except his best mate, his writing partner and Sussex university (although he hated the people who went there). After that we got sidetracked into talking about taboos in comedy, as one of our group had been at his controversial gig in Reading, (click here to read about it), but I’m not going to discuss that here. Due to this, we didn’t really develop the celebrity memoir theme any further.
I do occasionally enjoy reading memoirs of actors, musicians and other living people that I look up to and have had interesting careers, but nothing would induce me to open the covers of the vast majority of those volumes which fill the bestseller charts. If I’m missing out on anything here, you will let me know won’t you! (3/10, I borrowed this book)
I hate books like this with a passion in fact don’t get me started on why c**p like this gets published and really good mid-range authors lose their publishing contracts!
I can count the number of celeb books that I have read in the last ten years on one hand and two of those were Piers Morgan’s books about his life as a newspaper editor so I’m not sure if they count! Another was about the early years of HEAT magazine but since I read that while I was at my son’s house babysitting my grand daughter and suffering from terminal boredom because she had gone to bed, I’m not sure that counts either!
I can recommend Lauren Bacall’s autobiographies for an insider view of the golden age of Hollywood.
Liz – I’ve never bought into the whole Hello, Heat etc magazines things either, and I’m losing my interest in other women’s mags too as even they are regurgitating the same old stuff more than ever too.
The worst thing is that people buy these books! At the risk of reinforcing stereotypes, several of the guys in our group read the book mostly in the toilet – best place for it!
Now proper film star memoirs are a totally different kettle of fish, and I’ve heard that Bacall’s are wonderful. Must check them out one day.
I haven’t read any of these books, so I’m afraid I can’t let you know if you’re missing out on anything!
I do think that Frankie Boyle oversteps the mark frequently and was shocked to read the blog by the mother who was upset at the Reading gig. I’m secretly quite pleased that his book is boring!
I was happy to go along with the choice despite being sure I wouldn’t like the book, but knowing it would provoke good discussion!
I’m sorry you didn’t like this, Annabel. I don’t read celebrity memoirs but was attracted to this one for a) Frankie Boyle’s humour (although I doubted it would translate to the page) b) the fact that we grew up in the same city and went to the same school at one point c) I am intrigued by the fact that he was a teacher at one stage. I don’t think I’ll bother now!
It was certainly a topical choice with the recent furore. You have mentioned that your blog isn’t the place for that discussion so I won’t open a can of worms by making my feelings known but what I will say is that I received tickets to see him for my birthday and I cannot wait.
Claire, we chose the book two months ago – before all this happened. I didn’t like the book at all, and I don’t normally go to comedy gigs … however I have found him funny on the TV and if someone gave me tickets I’d definitely go – as long as they weren’t in the front row!
A book I wouldn’t even consider reading let alone buying and I’m a fan of this sort of book. As a comedian he ranks, in my opinion, with Ricky Gervais, as far down as it’s possible to go.
Now Ricky Gervais is a comedian that I don’t find funny at all.
I’m so glad!
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