09/01/2022

Author, narrator, and actor Wheaton gets self-reflective in this updated and annotated version of his 2004 memoir Just a Geek. In this remarkable literary experiment, Wheaton takes his original collection of entries culled from his prolific and popular blog and turns it inside out. He deftly incorporates his current views about fame versus celebrity and what it means to have joined and left the Star Trek universe via extensive footnotes that add context and detail left out of the original publication. With the audiobook narration in particular, Wheaton doesn't shy away from the kind of sincere emotion that clearly would have horrified his younger web persona—he bubbles with effervescent joy and weeps from agonized regret. In several moments of raw catharsis, he rages against a family that devalued and abused him. This audiobook is likely to be a treasure to fans of Wheaton's work and a puzzle to casual listeners, built as it is on a foundation of nested footnotes. VERDICT Wheaton's memoir is packed with insights about celebrity culture, Hollywood, and the fight to destigmatize mental health to keep even the least Trekkie listener absorbed.—Natalie Marshall

Actor Wil Wheaton—from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”—has managed something many of us have wished for at one time or another—a do-over. With humor and humility, he explains and mostly apologizes for his 2004 memoir JUST A GEEK. Using the acting skills he honed at an early age, he indulges in audiobook therapy. He invites us into his inner circle of friends and confesses misdeeds. As friends, listeners would tell Wil to relax and accept his humanity. He sounds pained when he talks about his stolen childhood and difficult relationship with his parents. After a heartfelt introduction by his hero, Neil Gaiman, Wheaton bares his soul like a buddy in a bar, clearing the air. Hey, Wil, we’re good. M.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

04/18/2022

“omeday, I will show them. I will show them all!” exclaims actor Wheaton in this tiresome endeavor to set the record straight on his reputation. After reliving the agony caused by a scathing one-sentence takedown of his first book, Just a Geek—the review’s title: “Whiner of the Week”—Wheaton concedes that he “take everything personally.” That sentiment shortly becomes apparent when, in an effort to atone for the homophobic jokes he made in his old book, he rehashes them here with annotations to “hold myself accountable.” The repetitious material that follows is rife with such trite exclamations aimed at readers as “You’re all beautiful.... You are perfect, exactly the way you are.” Less glib are raw passages about his father’s emotional abuse, his struggle with depression, and caring for his wife, Anne, as she recovered from a harrowing illness. In other glimpses into his life, Wheaton laments leaving Star Trek: The Next Generation, and reflects on a deflating encounter with William Shatner that left him in tears (“everyone was on my side,” he notes). Though fans will relish the FAQs about his movies—including one that confirms the leeches in 1986’s Stand by Me were indeed real—much of the writing feels stunted by past grievances, giving this a rather joyless air. Unfortunately, this second act is just more of the same. (Apr.)

Wil Wheaton is a geek who’s unafraid to sit at the keyboard and open a vein. There’s a lot of scorching honesty mixed in with these convulsively funny memoirs.”  — Cory Doctorow on Just a Geek

"Alternatively rueful and funny…a pleasure." — Kirkus Reviews

Wil Wheaton is a geek who’s unafraid to sit at the keyboard and open a vein. There’s a lot of scorching honesty mixed in with these convulsively funny memoirs.” 

Actor Wil Wheaton—from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”—has managed something many of us have wished for at one time or another—a do-over. With humor and humility, he explains and mostly apologizes for his 2004 memoir JUST A GEEK. Using the acting skills he honed at an early age, he indulges in audiobook therapy. He invites us into his inner circle of friends and confesses misdeeds. As friends, listeners would tell Wil to relax and accept his humanity. He sounds pained when he talks about his stolen childhood and difficult relationship with his parents. After a heartfelt introduction by his hero, Neil Gaiman, Wheaton bares his soul like a buddy in a bar, clearing the air. Hey, Wil, we’re good. M.S. © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine

2022-02-09
A second effort at an autobiography, alternately rueful and funny, by the Star Trek: The Next Generation actor.

“You know who I would be if I had never left? Say it with me, my people: WILLIAM FUCKING SHATNER.” So wrote Wheaton in one of the “weblog”—“the cool kids call it a ‘blog,’ ” he was then compelled to explain—posts that made up his 2004 book Just a Geek. This revisitation is occasioned by second thoughts about various aspects of the privilege, homophobia, and insensitivity that marked him when he was in his 20s but now, at 48, rightly embarrass him. He writes of an encounter with pop star Billy Idol at adjacent urinals, for example, in which he tried not to look down to avert “getting all gay and weird.” He adds in a footnote, “Hey look at that! A little casual homophobia to go with the objectification, ableism, and other inexcusable, problematic behavior…I am better now, I promise.” Wheaton confesses to suffering from anxiety and clinical depression, but there’s more. He also recounts feeling rejected next to a “Golden Child” brother, having his childhood acting earnings embezzled by his parents, and other injuries. Alongside the apologies, though, comes a gimlet-eyed look at show business and the complacency that stardom, however minor, can sometimes yield. Though the author admits that it was a kind of career suicide to quit a hit show and try to get onto the big screen, it led him to some good things—including picking up a role as a “delightfully evil version” of both his Star Trek role and his actual self on the long-running TV series The Big Bang Theory. Assuming readers can track the ubiquitous footnotes, they will also find a winning portrait of the first stirrings of SF conventions and fellow actors (Leonard Nimoy was a hero).

Contrition accepted, a pleasure for Wheaton’s many fans.