An inspirational memoir that is ultimately more about fandom and drive than athleticism.
Cook describes his unlikely ascent from high school benchwarmer to walk-on athlete in one of the country’s premier college football programs in this debut sports memoir.
Growing up watching University of Georgia football games with his father, Cook knew that he wanted to one day play for the team himself. He had no idea how difficult a dream that was to accomplish, however, even for a talented football player—which he was not. “I wasn’t a standout on my high school football team,” recalls Cook in his introduction, “in fact, I wasn’t even a starter. I was a fourth-string linebacker and had recorded one tackle in my entire high school career.” Most people would have seen the writing on the wall, but Cook would not let himself be deterred. After getting his acceptance letter from the university, he quickly Googled how to try out for the team, though even that information wasn’t easily acquirable. The tryout process—which Cook literally snuck his way into under false pretenses—turned out to be a tiered, monthslong affair in which he competed against far more qualified athletes for one of the few open spots on the roster. Despite being small, slow, and weak by even the standards of his high school program, Cook began a Rudy Ruettiger–like rise. He showed that he could outwork any player he came up against, proving that his spirit and tenacity were enough to earn him the right to wear a Bulldogs jersey. Cook’s prose is simple and clean, and it emanates the considerable regard he has for the University of Georgia and its storied program: “I went to every home game that fall, and they all held new meaning for me. I still got as excited about games as I had when I was a kid, but it was different. I knew those guys; I had trained with them and practiced against them. I understood what went on behind the scenes.” While Cook’s narrative doesn’t have quite the same drama as that of Notre Dame’s famous walk-on, it offers wonderful insight into the functioning of an elite Division I program that should be of interest to any college football fan.
An inspirational memoir that is ultimately more about fandom and drive than athleticism.Pub Date: March 26, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5445-1381-2
Page Count: 202
Publisher: Lioncrest Publishing
Review Posted Online: April 25, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2019
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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