My Shit Life So Far (Frankie Boyle)

In brief: Frankie reflects on his life in a very sardonic way.... chock-a-block full of his usual acerbic wit!

The good bits: Every so often there were some parts that made me laugh out loud, such as when he wrote about his short lived spell as a teacher.

The bad bits:  Having seen some of Frankie's comedy I knew that this would be quite crude in places, yet at times there were too many inappropriate jokes, even for me. 

I read this book because:  Jaw staggeringly rude and offensive he may be, yet I love him still! 

Setting: Various places around the UK

Rating: 2/5

Similar to: I've not read anything similar to this before (in regards to it's tone)... I guess it is similar to all standard autobiographies in that it is about Frankie's life... If you've enjoyed watching Frankie on 'Mock the Week', then you'll enjoy (parts of) this!

WARNING:  I really do feel the need to warn that Frankie's humour is incredibly crass and disrespectful, so if you are easily offended... don't read this book!

I've loved Frankie ever since I started watching Mock the Week a few years ago.  His accent is amazing, and he always has me in stitches from his entirely inappropriate sense of humour, so when I heard that he had written a book, I really wanted to read it.  Having finished it though, I feel as if I have just had a bit of an unwelcome insight into his life.  I think that I preferred it when I didn't know much about him - his obsession with pornography, his penchant for drugs, or the way he got a friend of his pregnant because he was bored.  Sometimes a bit of mystery can be a good thing, and in his case, I think that it was.  Frankie, I'm sure, would disagree:

"It's interesting for me to see the things people choose to get offended about and the things they let slide.... it's easy to loose your sense of perspective in show business."

That being said, this is Frankie Boyle I'm writing about, and so I have to say that I'm not sure how much of this book is actually true.  I'd suspect that he has made up or exaggerated a fair bit of what he has written in order to get a laugh.  In fact, in the introduction he even states that big parts of this book have been made up. 

"This book isn't entirely accurate.  I have changed all the names and occasionally tweaked the order of events.  I've also lied quite a lot."

What surprised me when I was reading this book, is how articulate he was in places.  Some of his descriptions of things were truly wonderful.  But unfortunately they only lasted for a sentence or two before he was off on another tangent.  At times, when he described his life I truly felt sorry for him.  It's obvious (well... if he was telling the truth), that he is a man who is plagued by a lot of demons, and has sought a lot of solace in alcohol and drugs.  He certainly paints a very bleak picture of life in Scotland.  

In this book, Frankie talks about his childhood in Scotland, his family holidays to a depressing village in Ireland, his college days and how he ended up doing comedy - first as a travelling comedian, then as a writer for Jimmy Carr, and eventually as a comedian with a tv show of his own.  He certainly isn't shy about talking about his downs just as much as his ups, and I respect him for that.
In summation, this book was interesting in some places, and as a fan of his, I knew that I would be in for a shock when I read this book.  I probably wouldn't recommend this book to others unless I knew that they were also a fan of Frankie's.  I'm not sure if he has written anything else, but in the future I think that I'll stick to watching his comedy, rather than reading about the inner workings of his dark and somewhat twisted mind. 


This fulfils my 'January' section of the 'Something New' reading challenge, hosted by Toni over at One Chocolate Box.  I haven't read an autobiography in such a long time, which is a shame, because it's always so interesting to read about other peoples lives.  A few years ago I read 'Escape' by Caroline Jessop, which was really interesting, and last year I read 'Breakout' by David Tchappat and '3096 Days' by Natascha Kampusch - both of which were really intriguing.  I have 'Dear Fatty' (Dawn French), 'A Stolen Life' (Jaycee Dugard) and 'Whatever it Takes' (Jim Stynes) all on my shelves, so I certainly intend to read more as the year goes on.  I'm always on the lookout for good autobiographies too, so if you know any, let me know and I'll get onto them!

I'm also being cheeky and counting this as a part of my 2012 'New Author Reading Challenge'.  Go me! :)