A hammy but occasionally compelling story of love’s humiliations.
Stevens recounts his struggles in love in this debut memoir.
After receiving candid relationship advice from his grandmother at a young age, the American author has been perennially unlucky in love—but always willing to give it another shot. In this collection of anecdotes, culled from decades of good, bad, and ugly romantic encounters, he plumbs the depths of human desire and indignity to which love has brought him. Stevens takes readers through the embarrassing, inadvisable, unlikely, and incredible events that have marked his relationships with women, from grade school crushes and awkward teenage sexual encounters to rushing into marriage with a woman and experimenting with online dating. A self-described “sexy ogre” (“not exactly attractive like The Rock, but has a good personality, kind of like Shrek”), Stevens nevertheless gets many chances at love, though they’re often upended by a lack of honesty (or too much of it), misunderstandings, infidelity, incompatibility, or plain old boredom. Of course, these hazards await anyone who dips a toe into the sea of love; the thing that matters is what one learns from the experience. Stevens has apparently learned a lot—several times over—and he wants to share it all in this work. To that end, he writes in an exuberant, jocular prose that attempts to keep the reader forever on his or her toes: “Have you ever gotten a date because of ferrets?” begins one chapter. “I can say that I have, and it was a really awesome experience too!” Unfortunately, this authorial personality can sometimes be difficult to bear. The book routinely refers to women as “lasses” and demonstrates dated views on gender roles: “If she is wrong and you gloat about it, you could find yourself sleeping in the doghouse without any treats. If you smile about it, you could be wiped off the face of the earth with a simple glare, and fellows, you know the glare I’m talking about.” If readers can get past this schtick, however, they’ll find a sometimes-engaging story of one man’s complex relationships.
A hammy but occasionally compelling story of love’s humiliations.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5320-1522-9
Page Count: 412
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2017
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
This autobiography might almost be said to supply the roots to Wright's famous novel, Native Son.
It is a grim record, disturbing, the story of how — in one boy's life — the seeds of hate and distrust and race riots were planted. Wright was born to poverty and hardship in the deep south; his father deserted his mother, and circumstances and illness drove the little family from place to place, from degradation to degradation. And always, there was the thread of fear and hate and suspicion and discrimination — of white set against black — of black set against Jew — of intolerance. Driven to deceit, to dishonesty, ambition thwarted, motives impugned, Wright struggled against the tide, put by a tiny sum to move on, finally got to Chicago, and there — still against odds — pulled himself up, acquired some education through reading, allied himself with the Communists — only to be thrust out for non-conformity — and wrote continually. The whole tragedy of a race seems dramatized in this record; it is virtually unrelieved by any vestige of human tenderness, or humor; there are no bright spots. And yet it rings true. It is an unfinished story of a problem that has still to be met.
Perhaps this will force home unpalatable facts of a submerged minority, a problem far from being faced.
Pub Date: Feb. 28, 1945
ISBN: 0061130249
Page Count: 450
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1945
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
