My Booky Wook [Kindle Edition]

I live in Denmark, thus I have never experienced various Russell Brand media dramas that have been. It seems to me like he is a man who has divided up Britain: either you love him passionately or you hate him passionately. Not being a part of this I guess that helped me read this book without prejudices.
I must say I was really moved by his story. Why? He has told his story beautifully, in a vivid language. In this autobiography Russell is having an ironic distance to really horrible events in his life. This ironic distance is what makes the book so good because it really shows how much it has affected him and that makes it extremely personal. I think his defence mechanism is his humour and using humour describing situations that are anything but humorous really gives you an insight into his bruised past. The pages are filled with humour, but the story is full of sorrow.

First off, I have to admit Brand is not a man I greatly warm to, particularly after recent disasters, but there are moments in this book where I laughed out loud and it is written with a rather endearing honesty. There's something essentially Byronic about the man, in my opinion. And in some ways the book has made me like him better. But the astonishing thing - and the reason you must consider it as one for your reading list - is that it absolutely has the best last two pages I have ever read in any biography. Or any work of non-fiction indeed. And the utter best last line. It's stunning and it left me (a) in tears and (b) hugely impressed. If Brand can write like that with such piercing clarity and depth, then more please and soon.

Russell Brand has lived a life, there can be no doubting that. He has been brave enough to publish some of the most personal of experiences which in itself I believe deserves recognition. I don't think I could ever bare my soul in the way Russell has, let alone make it half as entertaining as he has here. I read this through, cover to cover in one read. Some parts had me in tears and some in hysterics. He has a fascinating way with words and a style which is rarely seen in mainstream writing today.
I suppose as a big fan of Russell's, I am bound by some unwritten law...(it's probably written somewhere) to be full of praise for his autobiography and though I'll admit that is the case I feel it is most deserved. The only minor criticism is that the ending feels slightly neglected and lacks the passion entwined within the other 330 pages. Having said that, the last paragraph is superb and almost perfectly encapsulates Russell's rather stormy rise to fame, so superb in fact that it sent a shiver down my spine (in a good way).
I can't say how non-fans (what a rather horribly obscure term) will react to the book. However judging by some of the harsh comments on here (which I don't quite understand, it seems some reviewers decided to use the review section to post their views on the man himself, other than his writing) I get the feeling that some people didn't actually understand (for lack of a better word) the man. Perhaps the interview with Dawn French would be a better place to start.
I've reviewed this as an autobiography and I think it does a brilliant job at being exactly that: an autobiography.