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First Looks: Booky Wook 2: This Time It’s Personal

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My Booky Wook was one of the most revered and successful celebrity autobiographies of all time (not including the Bible or anything by Oprah). The honesty, mayhem, and scandal made it as riveting and fanciful as anything found in fiction.

In Booky Wook 2, this award-winning achievement is surpassed as Russell charts his rise from crack-house junky to Hollywood star, indulging in sexual excesses that make Caligula seem like a prudish spinster. On his quest to find true love, Russell encountered thousands of women, often three or four at a time (for efficiency), and his dizzying ambition led to chaos and controversy that could have landed him in prison and left the BBC in ruins.

This is the story of what happens when insatiable desire meets limitless opportunity and when a punk from the wrong side of the tracks is given the keys to the palace. This riot of self-indulgence would be rampaging still but for a tossed bottle to the head from one of the world’s biggest pop stars.

Can true love conquer all? Is it a more powerful force than the raging libido of a professional madman? The answer lies inside.

Review:

I have not read My Booky Wook, so I can’t compare the two books. However I enjoyed Booky Wook 2. It starts off as a jumbled mess, but starts to find its feet around Chapter 3. One problem is that you feel that Russell’s original draft was too short, so he pads out the book by quoting funny jokes he’s made to other people or that they have made to him. However it remains a very entertaining book with some genuinely laugh out loud moments – particularly an anecdote near the end when he’s seducing a woman that Puff Diddy put him onto, which had me in tears of laughter. I liked the way he doesn’t take himself too seriously, poking fun at his own hair and clothes (including the perils of wearing four belts when you meet Keith Richards).

Reading this book won’t give you much insight into Russell’s life. When he goes to make films, he doesn’t tell you much about the filming experience or what anyone was like. There’s no depth or introspection. However I did enjoy his story about going slowly crazy playing soccer in his room for three months during the filming of Forgetting Sarah Marshall – and about having to ride a horse in that movie. Famous people get name checked regularly. Adam Sandler is a good guy who has helped him out. A fling with Kate Moss was the highlight of his life. He hero worships Morrissey, adores Johnathan Ross and Noel Gallagher and actively dislikes Sir Bob Geldof.

If there’s a theme throughout it’s his womanizing and I liked the way he’s very honest about his flaws and about how he seduces people. For example when one woman rebuffs him saying that she’s heard about him, he is undeterred and comments: “I have a good speech for this kind of approach”. Along the way he occasionally meets strong and ballsy women like Lucy Lawless and Juliette Lewis and senses that maybe there could be a woman who would get him to give up this crazy lifestyle. Finally, in the final chapter he meets Katy Perry and the way he describes her is very sincere and moving. I hope their marriage lasts because he certainly is crazy about her.

So it’s a fun read, pretty forgettable but very good entertainment. However if you don’t find him funny, steer clear, because there’s nothing here that will change your mind.