I bought this book the other day and have read about half of it so far. I expected to like it, since I'd heard lots of good things about it from various sources. But I didn't expect to like it as much as I do. It seems like a very honest account of his struggles to overcome the stigma of being Wesley Crusher, and to resurrect his acting career after quitting Star Trek. I'd recommend this book to anyone who ever made a mistake when they were young and then spent a long time trying to live that mistake down and find a new path in life.
It is a good book. I read his blog regularly, as well as various things he's involved with on-line. netscape, revision3, suicide girls, etc. He's a fine tribute to Geeks everywhere.
Yes, it must have been so hard to overcome the stigma of being Wesley and shake off all those earnings and royalty payments.
I've read his website years ago and he struck me as a very likeable guy. Of course he gets those but that's nowhere near what the adult stars get. Would still be nice tho but I guess as an actor he'd rather shake the image of Wesley than receive the money.
Hell, he got to cannoodle, at least on-screen, w/ Ashley Judd. And got paid for it. WTF does he have to "get over"?!?
Whatever the royalty payments are they must not have been enough, since he writes about having to borrow money from his parents to make ends meet.
An actor playing a minor character in a large ensemble cast is not going to make masses of cash in royalties.
I think much of the fan base was too hard on him myself. I don't understand why the character got on many people's nerves. He was a child genius. So what.
So it made the adult crew look like a bunch of monkies who were too stupid to work out how to solve a problem!
Yup, that's pretty much the reason. Whoever thinks that anybody likes precocious children on TV is flat out wrong (but obviously quite powerful because they just won't go away).
Wil Wheaton wasn't responsible for how the idiot writers wrote his character. Wesley was an annoying, but Wheaton was a good actor who got trapped in a bad role.
I've read a little bit of Wheaton's writing and I don't care for his style. But he's done a good job of moving on with his life while not forgetting where he came from.
I like the chapter in the book where he sells a signed Wesley action figure on eBay in order to get money to pay his bills.
Yes, Wesley Crusher sucked fat hairy donkey balls. Wheaton, on the other hand, sounds pretty cool, or at least ok. I read somewhere that he wasn't going to get a raise one year but that dickhole Berman said he would give him a promotion to Lieutenant. Wheaton claims he told Berman "What the hell am I suppose to tell my landlord? I don't have the rent, but I just made Lieutenant!"