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A review by verlkonig
Help by Simon Amstell
4.0
I bloody love Simon Amstell, and I hope you do too. If not, go and look up his live shows, or watch his stint on Never Mind the Buzzcocks, or his sitcom Grandma's House. I promise, they are all hilarious, and they will all bring you joy. I am honestly so grateful for comedians, just as I am so grateful for anyone who can make me laugh. They just brighten my day exponentially.
Help is a very honest book. It's basically an autobiography, interspersed with extracts from four live shows (No Self, Do Nothing, Numb, and To be Free). I've seen 3 of them, but there's so much extra material here that at no point did I feel like it was too repetitive. The other thing is that the tone is really different from his shows. Go and watch the beginning of this one:
WATCH IT
This is how it starts:
"I'm quite lonely, let's start with that. I bought a new flat about two years ago. In this flat, in the bathroom, there are two sinks. I thought that would bring me some joy. It is a constant reminder. And so what I have had to do, this is what I am doing now in my life, I am actually doing this - I'm using both sinks. Now, everyday I brush my teeth in the left sink and in the right one, I mainly cry."
I remember watching this a while ago and laughing hard, but reading the book I smirked but felt a bit sad too. And that's the whole book, basically. His delivery live makes the slightly more depressing aspects of his anecdotes very funny, whereas reading the written words made me really think about what he's saying. (Damn you, Amstell, for making me think about your words!) For this reason, and as many others have said, the audiobook version of this might be better than the physical book.
Amstell discusses many parts of his life here in a brutally honest way. It's clear that he's faced challenges in his life, such as:
Being openly gay and Jewish:
"In the Jewish religion, if you're a boy and you have a boyfriend, it's important that he's a girl."
Or having relationship troubles:
"The problem with needing people to love you, despite who you are, is that ou end up subtly compromising for them and so internalise their prejudice and their rage. Rather than let them reject you, you allow all their nonsense to live inside you. You don't realise it but you agree to feel uncomfortable about this bit of yourself too, just slightly, just enough to keep them in your life. You settle for being mildly content with you who are, rather than proud or thrilled, and any attempts at love will be thwarted by this refusal to love yourself completely."
Or lacking self esteem:
"Frustrated and, I suppose, scared by the conventional, I've spent a lot of energy, one stage and off, fretting about how much of who I am will be tolerated before I'm rejected."
Or suffering from depression:
"When I feel sad now, I know it's not because I'm a broken human being, it's because it is one of the emotions that human beings feel."
He handles everything with such wit that it's hard not to be utterly charmed by him. I laughed, I cried, and I honestly feel like this makes a better self-help book than loads of others on the market. There's no bullshit here, it's just an honest and straight to the point account of feelings and situations that will make you laugh while also making you think.
"Everything is a choice between fear and love. We may as well choose love because death is coming. Death is coming. Death is coming."
Help is a very honest book. It's basically an autobiography, interspersed with extracts from four live shows (No Self, Do Nothing, Numb, and To be Free). I've seen 3 of them, but there's so much extra material here that at no point did I feel like it was too repetitive. The other thing is that the tone is really different from his shows. Go and watch the beginning of this one:
WATCH IT
This is how it starts:
"I'm quite lonely, let's start with that. I bought a new flat about two years ago. In this flat, in the bathroom, there are two sinks. I thought that would bring me some joy. It is a constant reminder. And so what I have had to do, this is what I am doing now in my life, I am actually doing this - I'm using both sinks. Now, everyday I brush my teeth in the left sink and in the right one, I mainly cry."
I remember watching this a while ago and laughing hard, but reading the book I smirked but felt a bit sad too. And that's the whole book, basically. His delivery live makes the slightly more depressing aspects of his anecdotes very funny, whereas reading the written words made me really think about what he's saying. (Damn you, Amstell, for making me think about your words!) For this reason, and as many others have said, the audiobook version of this might be better than the physical book.
Amstell discusses many parts of his life here in a brutally honest way. It's clear that he's faced challenges in his life, such as:
Being openly gay and Jewish:
"In the Jewish religion, if you're a boy and you have a boyfriend, it's important that he's a girl."
Or having relationship troubles:
"The problem with needing people to love you, despite who you are, is that ou end up subtly compromising for them and so internalise their prejudice and their rage. Rather than let them reject you, you allow all their nonsense to live inside you. You don't realise it but you agree to feel uncomfortable about this bit of yourself too, just slightly, just enough to keep them in your life. You settle for being mildly content with you who are, rather than proud or thrilled, and any attempts at love will be thwarted by this refusal to love yourself completely."
Or lacking self esteem:
"Frustrated and, I suppose, scared by the conventional, I've spent a lot of energy, one stage and off, fretting about how much of who I am will be tolerated before I'm rejected."
Or suffering from depression:
"When I feel sad now, I know it's not because I'm a broken human being, it's because it is one of the emotions that human beings feel."
He handles everything with such wit that it's hard not to be utterly charmed by him. I laughed, I cried, and I honestly feel like this makes a better self-help book than loads of others on the market. There's no bullshit here, it's just an honest and straight to the point account of feelings and situations that will make you laugh while also making you think.
"Everything is a choice between fear and love. We may as well choose love because death is coming. Death is coming. Death is coming."