I feel guilty about this book. I stumped for it pretty hard in the Book Club vote, based on how much I loved Craig Ferguson’s memoir, American on Purpose, and his stand up, and his stint on The Late Late Show. (American on Purpose is still the best celebrity memoir I’ve ever read, FYI.) But, I did not like reading this book. His signature wit and profanity, his cheeky observational skills, things that I love about him, were not put to a purpose here that I could appreciate.
I take comfort, though, that I was not the only person to make this mistake. It seems from looking at the reviews that most of us either straight up didn’t like this book, or tolerated it.
What it comes down to for me is that as much as I could appreciate Ferguson’s skill, I did not like the way he deployed it. This book was so negative, cynical, from page one. There were a lot of great lines in this book, but they were all in service of a tone that I prefer to avoid in the books I read. I am an emotional/mood reader. If a book is competent and achieves the goal it sets out to achieve, that is still no guarantee I will like it if it makes me feel like shit, which this book did. Even though it did get better by the end, and ultimately ended in a place of redemption, that doesn’t change the fact that I still had to read a bunch of stuff that made me feel terrible.
I had to go and read a bunch of fluffy as shit fanfic after finishing this, just to wash the taste out of my mouth. (I would have done this anyway.)
And all of this just makes me sad.
I think I am going to continue loving Craig Ferguson and his memoir and all the clips of The Late Late Show I can find on YouTube (Secretariat <3), but I’m going to forget I read this and that it exists.
CBR Bingo: #CannonBookClub
Here’s my favorite Craigy Ferg moment. Him breaking at his terrible joke never fails to cheer me up.
I don’t think I’ll ever find a clip of it, but there was one night on his show when he had a feather for some reason, and was pretending it was an ink quill…somehow he started talking about how Joan of Arc was only a teenager when she died and did a bit where he licked the end of the quill and said “dear diary” in a sassy French accent. Something about that killed me and I laughed until I cried.
I wish this book had made me feel the same way.
I love Craig and am pretty much blocking this book from my memory.
Instead I choose to remember Robot Geoff and Betty White and Secretariat and Michael Sheen.
LOL.
Is this the feather, though? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPFvrzdNBPE
It was a white-ish feather. But that one is lovely, too.
I also voted for this because I loved his autobiography and was, as most people seem to have been, disappointed and let down by this book. Clearly, Ferguson’s strength is not novel writing.
And yet, if he were to write another, I’d read it. Just because of how excellent his autobiography was and how much I loved his show.
I would only read it if somebody I trusted said they thought I would like it.
I feel like there will be people now who hated this and who will not read his memoir, when they would probably like it.
Yes. I am one of those people.
It’s so good!