Nerd Do Well
Simon Pegg wrote a book?! He narrates an audio version of it! I just piddled my pants!Dear review readers, please realize you are looking at a five star rating of the most gratuitous kind. Because I don't have the womb capacity to physically bear Simon Pegg's babies, giving his book an extra star or two is the only way for me to proclaim my love. Perhaps you do not feel as deeply about him --NEY!-- Since you definitely don't feel as deeply about him as I do, consider Pegg's autobiography to be somewhere closer to the high threes, maybe a four starrer.
Nerd Do Well is Pegg's reluctant agreement with his publisher to put out a "tell-all" instead of the comicy, action-filled sci-fi book he would've rather have done. The compromise will confuse and maybe even annoy some, for Pegg's non-fiction life details are interspersed with a fictional and funny-as-fuck tale of his own penning, in which he casts himself as a futuristic James Bond character.
Though Pegg says he doesn't wish to divulge personal details, he does actually get more personal than one would expect. Being that his nerd persona is based on his childhood love of the sci-fi and horror genres, lots of time is spent discussing Pegg as a youth. Since boys are almost always also interested in sex, the reader is made privy to some of his more private triumphs and failures. It's nothing too graphic...well okay, some "bad language" is used...but he doesn't go overboard. I didn't tally it up, but I'll bet there's more sexual innuendo in the fictional tale than in the real-life section.
All that silly smut is balanced out by a large helping of insight into his acting career. He begins at the beginning and marches it right through to the release of the movie Paul. If you're familiar with his career you'll enjoy the tales of how he met friends like Nick Frost and how shows such as Spaced and Big Train came about. A fan such as myself might beg for more behind the scenes details of these seminal steps in his showbiz career, but all in all, this tightly packed autobiography does what it should: satiate satisfyingly without saturating.