A review by ginger_curmudgeon
James Patterson by James Patterson: The Stories of My Life by James Patterson

2.75

Here’s one I wouldn’t normally read. The obvious, this is not well written. I’m hoping it went through another round of editing before being published. Patterson’s style is brief, conversational, and jerky. Most chapters are three pages or less. He admits to writing how he speaks, which unfortunately means there are weird interjections, clunky segues, and he jumps between points and topics. There’s no timeline to his story so if you like memoirs that follow a timeline, this isn’t for you. 

All of that said, some of the stories are interesting. I think I was most interested in his time in advertising. Remember the famous Toys R Us tagline? He was part of creating that. 

Stories about his writing might have been the next most interesting. He claims to have an average of 30 manuscripts in some stage of development at any given time. I’m not surprised that he creates detailed outlines for his books and then essentially fills them in later. Or has someone else fill them in for him as co-writer. 

Overall, I think this landed pretty close to what I expected it to be.