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No Is a Four-Letter Word: How I Failed Spelling but Succeeded in Life by Paul Stanley, Chris Jericho
danlandreads's review against another edition
2.0
I read this mostly hoping for behind-the-scenes stories from one of the most entertaining wrestlers in WWE history. Jericho delivered. There's some advice woven in between name dropping and personal stories about his rise to success in the WWE and with his band Fozzy.
What I found most interesting was how much of a fanboys over his favorite rock artists even with his considerable amount of fame.
If none of the individual pieces of advice prove applicable to my life, one thing throughout the book rings true: the need to hustle and believe in yourself if you want to be successful.
What I found most interesting was how much of a fanboys over his favorite rock artists even with his considerable amount of fame.
If none of the individual pieces of advice prove applicable to my life, one thing throughout the book rings true: the need to hustle and believe in yourself if you want to be successful.
deltajuliet83's review against another edition
3.0
I liked his other books much better than this one. Many of his stories in this one weren’t as funny or relatable but I still love this dude overall.
bundy23's review against another edition
3.0
Jericho can tell a tale, I'll give him that, but this book was at least 60% just name dropping which really wore thin after a while. The wrestling stories are fun, the celebrity stuff, not so much. 2.5 stars.
mbouch6's review against another edition
5.0
A nice change of pace from the previous 3 books. More of a motivational book in the form of the Stories of Jericho. Looking forward to book number 5 if there is one!
manda_reads's review against another edition
reflective
2.5
This book was okay however the format of the book was a bit too self-help for me.
chaitanyasethi's review against another edition
3.0
đź“– đź“– đź“–
Chris Jericho is one of my all-time favourite wrestlers. I've read his trilogy of autobiographies (A Lion's Tale, Undisputed, The Best in the World...) which end at his triumphant 2013 Royal Rumble. Therefore I was going into this book with the same mindset, that it would pick up from where he left off and continue.
However this was a semi-self-help-autobiography hybrid where he has written about life lessons and elaborated upon how he reflected them in his life. Self help isn't really my cup of tea so I didn't really care for it but the incidents and nuggets he shared about his life and career were all fun to read. There is a lot of name dropping of rock legends but I'm not a huge rock fan so I couldn't recognize or appreciate the value of the name dropping per se. The wrestling bits I enjoyed thoroughly.
Chris has a funny, corny, dad-jokey way of writing that I find nice to read. He uses ample puns and double entendres. He writes in a simple and direct fashion and it is very conversational in tone. Sometimes his confidence comes across as arrogance and sometimes he pretends to write as an arrogant character, which can be confusing to distinguish. Nonetheless it is always fun as a 'mark' to be a fly on the wall for such people, to find out what these guys do backstage and how they are behind their characters. This was a decent read that I breezed through in a couple of days.
Chris Jericho is one of my all-time favourite wrestlers. I've read his trilogy of autobiographies (A Lion's Tale, Undisputed, The Best in the World...) which end at his triumphant 2013 Royal Rumble. Therefore I was going into this book with the same mindset, that it would pick up from where he left off and continue.
However this was a semi-self-help-autobiography hybrid where he has written about life lessons and elaborated upon how he reflected them in his life. Self help isn't really my cup of tea so I didn't really care for it but the incidents and nuggets he shared about his life and career were all fun to read. There is a lot of name dropping of rock legends but I'm not a huge rock fan so I couldn't recognize or appreciate the value of the name dropping per se. The wrestling bits I enjoyed thoroughly.
Chris has a funny, corny, dad-jokey way of writing that I find nice to read. He uses ample puns and double entendres. He writes in a simple and direct fashion and it is very conversational in tone. Sometimes his confidence comes across as arrogance and sometimes he pretends to write as an arrogant character, which can be confusing to distinguish. Nonetheless it is always fun as a 'mark' to be a fly on the wall for such people, to find out what these guys do backstage and how they are behind their characters. This was a decent read that I breezed through in a couple of days.
nicholasbobbitt1997's review
3.0
While Jericho remains as good a writer as he was in the first two books, he's lacking original material here and the "self-help" concept of the book is less entertaining than an out-and-out continuation of the autobiography would've been.
yonnyan's review
2.0
I originally picked this up because it was recommended to me. While I did enjoy most of the advice he had to offer regarding how to be successful with your career and aspirations, I also found a section of this book to be terribly problematic and disrespectful.
There is a part where Jericho discusses the time he visited Dubai and it really placed his ignorance into perspective, specifically about religion and cultures he doesn’t understand. Yes, there is horrible oppression in that area of the world when it comes to women, but most of that is cultural rather than religious. There are many, many examples of how people utilise religion as an excuse as a means to oppress, using it to create governing laws and regulations. Does it mean that everyone in said religion around the world share the same viewpoints or beliefs in that regard? Hell no. The fact that someone could make a harsh judgment on an entire faith based off the cultural norms and individual perception of faith from one small region of the entire world was extremely harmful and offensive to me—specifically as someone from said faith—and it greatly illustrated his privilege and how that privilege affects the way that he views the world around him. It is because of ignorant and jaded viewpoints like this that the vast majority of the world sees this religion as everything that’s harmful, instead of taking the time to learn that it’s truly anything but those horrid things. People in positions of influence perpetuating harmful stereotypes due to their ignorance and unwillingness to understand.
I also did not appreciate the rude jokes he made about the faith, specifically using the word Allah. If you don’t like or respect people making jokes about your faith, and find them to be wholly blasphemous, then please be courteous and don’t do the same to those of differing faiths. Your faith doesn’t make you superior. It makes you different. It’s okay to be different. But being different doesn’t make one person better than another, and it sure as hell does not excuse inappropriate behaviour such as this.
After reading those portions, I was more open-minded to other ways that Jericho exhibited his privilege and ignorance, and while I still believe his advice is good, I cannot with sound judgment recommend this book.
2 outta 5.
There is a part where Jericho discusses the time he visited Dubai and it really placed his ignorance into perspective, specifically about religion and cultures he doesn’t understand. Yes, there is horrible oppression in that area of the world when it comes to women, but most of that is cultural rather than religious. There are many, many examples of how people utilise religion as an excuse as a means to oppress, using it to create governing laws and regulations. Does it mean that everyone in said religion around the world share the same viewpoints or beliefs in that regard? Hell no. The fact that someone could make a harsh judgment on an entire faith based off the cultural norms and individual perception of faith from one small region of the entire world was extremely harmful and offensive to me—specifically as someone from said faith—and it greatly illustrated his privilege and how that privilege affects the way that he views the world around him. It is because of ignorant and jaded viewpoints like this that the vast majority of the world sees this religion as everything that’s harmful, instead of taking the time to learn that it’s truly anything but those horrid things. People in positions of influence perpetuating harmful stereotypes due to their ignorance and unwillingness to understand.
I also did not appreciate the rude jokes he made about the faith, specifically using the word Allah. If you don’t like or respect people making jokes about your faith, and find them to be wholly blasphemous, then please be courteous and don’t do the same to those of differing faiths. Your faith doesn’t make you superior. It makes you different. It’s okay to be different. But being different doesn’t make one person better than another, and it sure as hell does not excuse inappropriate behaviour such as this.
After reading those portions, I was more open-minded to other ways that Jericho exhibited his privilege and ignorance, and while I still believe his advice is good, I cannot with sound judgment recommend this book.
2 outta 5.
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