Despite having one of the stupidest names in the history of literature, My Booky Wook by Russell Brand is a heartwarming autobiography, with sweet tales of addiction, prostitution and dreams. The reality is that most of us already know a fair bit about Rusty Rockets from the diabolical stories printed about this tortured soul in the trash rag magazines and newspapers that have sodomised his good name with their claims and cleverly edited imagery.
However, unlike most other trash that is printed alongside it, this particular bit of name buggery is laughably inept at capturing the true depths to which Russell Brand actually slunk throughout his rise to fame. Only in his opening biography can you really get a flavour of the ups and downs of the eccentric comic.
In My Booky Wook, brand has delivered a genital warts-and-all insight into the crack infested, womanising world that has been his rise to stardom (actually, we don’t think that genital warts are covered in the book. We just thought it sounded pretty witty). You get everything from his willful and dramatic childhood in Essex to his first few drug fuelled stand-up comedy gigs in London.
However, despite it all – his self destruction and subsequent incarceration in a sex addiction facility in America – you can’t help but warm to the loveable rogue ethos he’s surrounded himself with, although we guess that’s the image he’s probably aiming for. We’re not saying that we love Russell Brand – frankly his knockers aint big enough if the pictures in between page 310 and 311 are anything to go by – but he’s definitely consistently funny throughout the entire booky… wooky.
The other thing that is sustained throughout the autobiography is Brand’s unwavering honesty, or apparent honesty, as he leaves no festering crevice of his life unturned – including being sexually abused by his piano teacher and getting introduced to sex by his dad at the hands of Thai prostitutes (neither of which are funny in the slightest). It gives you a very stark insight into the things he’s had to deal with over the years.
Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook is in parts as silly as the name implies, but it’s also a book that you’ll get into like a tramp gets into meths and laugh along with like a a cackling fatty at an orgy for uglies.
Russell Brand’s My Booky Wook review: 4/5
