Review: Professional Idiot: A Memoir

Author: Stephen "Steve-O" Glover

Started reading: March 30th 2022

Finished the book: April 14th 2022

Pages: 336

Genres: Non-Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir

Published: June 7th 2011

Source: Ebook

Goodreads score: 4.10

My score:

Synopsis

From his early days videotaping crazy skateboard stunts to starring in the Jackass movies, there was little that Stephen "Steve-O" Glover wouldn't do. Whether it was stapling his nutsack to his leg or diving into a pool full of elephant crap, almost nothing was out of bounds. As the stunts got crazier, his life kept pace. He developed a crippling addiction to drugs and alcohol, and an obsession with his own celebrity that proved nearly as dangerous. Only an intervention and a visit to a psychiatric ward saved his life. Today he has been clean and sober for more than three years.

My thoughts

Thanks to Arjen for introducing me to this book. I've always been a big Jackass fan, so of course I know Steve-O. I'm not a non-fiction reader, but when it's something interesting I'm up to try it! This book was, for me, 90% of ramblings where Steve-O is either high, stoned or an asshole and me disliking Steve-O very much. The final 10% felt like the real Steve-O voice that I did like. And I was sad that this book wasn't the other way around. I felt a lot like: "Look at me doing all this stupid shit, being high, being stoned and depressed. Oh, yeah, I also got sober and I am better person but lets just leave that as a side note..."

Pros

• Honesty: I feel like Steve-O is completely honest about everything in this book, and that's not always a pretty sight. I do respect Steve-O for writing everything that's happened, I also feel like it's necessary to see how he hit rock-bottom, but it did NOT make me like him, at all.
• Final 10%: The final 10% sounded like a much more rational and real voice. I feel really sad for giving this book 2 stars, but I can't rate a book on the final 10%. The Steve-O telling voice at the end of this book was one I could read for hours. I just wish it was the other way around: 10% of fucked-up Steve-O and 90% of Sober Steve-O. I really liked him in the final 10% and he seems like a really good guy since he's sober.

Cons

• Too much: I know people keep saying in this book that Steve-O is sometimes too much. I felt exactly the same. Sometimes this book felt to me like trying to be too funny, too good to be true and sometimes I felt like things were written purely with the intention to shock people. I understand that some parts are necessary to show where Steve-O is coming from, but 300 pages full of that sort of shit? No...
• Cool: I don't feel like it's cool or amazing to be drunk and high for years and to do nothing with your life. I feel like Steve-O could've judged himself for that in this book, but he does not do that until the final part of the book and that made me really dislike his former self. I just felt like he really thinks the first 30-something years of his life were "rad", like he would say it.
• Attention: He does call himself an attention whore in this book multiple times. And that was the main thing that just annoyed me so much. Everything for the attention, anything to show that Steve-O is better than any other person on this planet. He felt better because he is rich, he was being vegetarian to show others that he's better, he was even getting sober in the first place for the attention. Life is not a game that you need to win, and again; It was just way too many pages of this writing.

Overall

At some point in this book Steve-O calls himself a nasty, arrogant, mean-spirited douchebag, and for the most part in this book I totally agree. I've watched some interviews with the sober, nowadays Steve-O and I like him a lot. I wished the rationaal and sober Steve-O voice could be more present in this book. That final 10% does make me curious about his next book, that's coming out soon. The first 90% makes me scared it's more of the same shit...

Other opinions on this book

"A great book to read before you get on the roller coaster to hell, if you plan on surviving to tell about it like Steve-O did."

- Nikki Sixx, author of The Heroin Diaries

"It's mind-blowing to me how utterly far gone Steve-O was, and how he looks back on it in this book with such intelligence, humor, and searing honesty. What a truly unbelievable life."

- Johnny Knoxville

Memorable quotes from this book

"We have free will to make any choice we desire in this life, but our choices have consequences that we can't escape. Karma-it is a bitch."

Thanks for reading!

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