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24/7/2018 0 Comments

Review: How Not To Be a Boy

How Not To Be a Boy by Robert Webb
 
Genre: Autobiography
Page Length: 337 Pages
Publication Date: 31 August 2017
Publisher: Canongate Books
 
Stars:  5 out of 5
 
Link: AMAZON (UK)

 
ABOUT HOW NOT TO BE A BOY
 
RULES FOR BEING A MAN
Don't Cry;
Love Sport;
Play Rough;
Drink Beer;
 Don't Talk About Feelings
 
But Robert Webb has been wondering for some time now: are those rules actually any use? To anyone?
 
Looking back over his life, from schoolboy crushes (on girls and boys) to discovering the power of making people laugh (in the Cambridge Footlights with David Mitchell), and from losing his beloved mother to becoming a husband and father, Robert Webb considers the absurd expectations boys and men have thrust upon them at every stage of life.
 
Hilarious and heartbreaking, How Not To Be a Boy explores the relationships that made Robert who he is as a man, the lessons we learn as sons and daughters, and the understanding that sometimes you aren't the Luke Skywalker of your life - you're actually Darth Vader.
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My Review:

I don't read many autobiographies and I'm reminded of a quote from PD James “All fiction is largely autobiographical and much autobiography is, of course, fiction.”
 
I enjoy Robert Webb's work on television and an ardent fan of everything Mitchell & Webb. I was interested in reading this book but not chomping at the bit. As I started it a few months ago, and then got distracted with something else and only just returned to it having forgotten what I had read and had to start from the beginning again. 
 
This book is so gorgeous, it's raw and honest, and warm and sweet, and it goes without saying – funny, but it's deeper than that – it's as if we're allowed into his inner neurosis, the small voice we keep hidden from others, helped along through excruciating teenage diary entries.  
 
There is a feeling that the young Robert Webb that is portrayed is genuine. It is also such a brilliant account of how confusing it must be to be a modern man with expectations of such dense masculinity.
 
I am in awe of his writing and wonder if there is a budding novelist in Webb about to be unleashed – something I would heartily welcome.
 
And it's changed my mind about reading autobiographies.
 
VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
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11/4/2018 0 Comments

Review: How to Murder Your Life

How to Murder Your Life by Cat Marnell
​
Genre: Autobiography
​Page Length: 374 Pages
Publication Date: 2 February 2017
Publisher: Ebury Digital

Stars:  4 out of 5


LINKS: Amazon (UK)

ABOUT HOW TO MURDER YOUR LIFE
By the age of 15, Cat Marnell longed to work in the glamorous world of women's magazines - but was also addicted to the ADHD meds prescribed by her father. Within 10 years she was living it up in New York as a beauty editor at Condé Nast, with a talent for 'doctor-shopping' that secured her a never-ending supply of prescribed amphetamines. Her life had become a twisted merry-go-round of parties and pills at night, while she struggled to hold down her high-profile job during the day.

Witty, magnetic and penetrating - prompting comparisons to Bret Easton Ellis and Charles Bukowski - Cat Marnell reveals essential truths about her generation, brilliantly uncovering the many aspects of being an addict with pin-sharp humour and beguiling style.

'I was twenty-six years old and an associate beauty editor at Lucky, one of the top fashion magazines in America. That’s all that most people knew about me. But beneath the surface, I was full of secrets: I was a drug addict, for one. A pillhead. I was also an alcoholic-in-training who guzzled warm Veuve Clicquot after work alone in my boss’s office with the door closed; a conniving and manipulative uptown doctor-shopper; a salami-and-provolone-puking bulimic who spent a hundred dollars a day on binge foods when things got bad (and they got bad often); a weepy,wobbly, wildly hallucination-prone insomniac; a tweaky self-mutilator; a slutty and self-loathing downtown party girl; and – perhaps most of all – a lonely weirdo. But, you know, I had access to some really fantastic self-tanner.'
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My Review:

WOAH! So this is an incredible read BUT it won't be for everyone. The story of Cat's life is raw, it is unabashedly honest to the point of uncomfortable at times, but it is an insight to the life and survival of a some-what functioning addict. It by no means proposes excuses for abusing drugs and the almost unapologetic tone could come across as patronising, yet I can't remember any book I have read that offers such an honest and transparent recollection of addiction.

I would also recommend to those who have a loved one who struggles with drug use/abuse.

What a ride.
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