Book 14 of 2010

I read this using iBooks while relaxing in Las Vegas.

14) Suck It, Wonder Woman! by Olivia Munn
Olivia Munn is an entertaining lady. She's pretty and is fun to watch on G4 and The Daily Show. And she is funny. But...she's not a comedian (or comedienne, as the case may be).


I've been racking my brain trying to really figure out how to make that distinction and the easiest way is contained within the pages of this book. There are some genuinely funny stories and bits that deliver. A New Hope as told through Princess Leia's Twitter account is pretty damn funny. But interspersed throughout the rest of the book are stories about how she's worked hard or how her family is crazy. When I was just getting to know a really great friend of mine, he started a conversation by saying to me, "You're alive, so I'll assume your family is also crazy." That stuck with me because it's true. And while Olivia Munn's family sure is crazy, they aren't "write it in a book" crazy. They're more like normal crazy, which I guess is an oxymoron.

People make it in the entertainment business through a combination of really hard work and luck. Their individual way of getting there can be pretty interesting. I'm sure Ms. Munn's story is interesting as well, but there's not enough of it in the book because she wants to break up the random stories with funny bits or inspirational pieces about girls who don't fit in following their dreams. I wish she had picked a focus and stuck with it. Instead we get a mishmash of sometimes charming anecdotes and then a bunch of filler. Seriously, save the fan art for your website because it came off poorly in the book.

The book didn't make me like Olivia Munn more or make me like her less. Outside of a sad tale about the death of her grandmother, I don't even think I know her any better than I did before. That kind of stinks, I guess. That's kind of the impression the whole book gave me: it's okay but it really feels incomplete.