Book Review: Just A Geek

I just finished reading Wil Wheaton’s wonderful Just A Geek and I was really quite impressed. Wil weaves his story around the events of his life during 2001 -2003 and intersperses his commentary with revealing and often humorous posts from his blog, wilwheaton.net. What I found most interesting was the internal turmoil he suffered as he wrote those posts and it’s enlightening as he dissects them after the fact. This is a very introspective, intelligent person doing what so many other bloggers do: learning about himself through his writing.

Just A Geek has a much better sense of purpose and a more distinct voice than Dancing Barefoot. The latter is just a series of vignettes and short stories, so it would have been difficult to develop an overarching narrative. I’m just incredibly impressed that the result of all that blogging was an actual physical book which was a darn good read.

Best of all is that Wil is very greatful to be where he’s at in his life. Reading his thank-yous and acknowledgements, it’s easy to see why his blog is so well-read: he appreciates what he has. That particular quality is one that I think most people aspire and few people reach, so it’s heartening to see Wil succeed at being comfortable in his own skin.

I give the book a hearty thumb up.

I can’t post this review, however, without including the following anectdote. My boss’ boss worked for Paramount during the launch of TNG and was part of the UPN launch of Voyager, so he has a fair amount of Trek memorabilia in his office. When I mentioned Wil’s book, the first thing he did was make a snide remark about Wil’s career, which I won’t repeat. The second thing he said was that Wil was very fond of the press/media kit they devised for the TNG show launch and asked for multiple copies for his friends and relatives. Apparently it consisted of space age press materials (cool paper? holograms?) contained within a brushed metal attachè.

I have no way of substantiating this story unless Wil reads this review. So Wil, did you ask for a bunch of those attachès in 1987? By the way, I loved the book.

One thought on “Book Review: Just A Geek

  1. CSI: Wil Wheaton
    I’ve read, enjoyed and reviewed both of Wil Wheaton’s books [Just a Geek & Dancing Barefoot] and I’ve been a loyal reader of WWdN for quite some time now, so it gives me great pleasure to let you know that Wil has booked a job on CSI! I haven’t b…

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