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The Rundown: that really mean guy (who is now super nice) who used to draw penises on celebs on his celerity gossip site promises to give all the dirt, then falls short.
Written and Narrated by Perez Hilton
Oh, where oh where do I start with this one. Well, this is hard, because I genuinely like Perez Hilton. Not that I know him, but I came of age in the era of the internet, and followed his site from the beginning. His site used to be really funny and full of raunchy. Then he got called out for being on online bully because he posted a video against bullying. He promised to stop writing nasty things about people. I haven’t visited in eons though, as my penchant for celebrity gossip isn’t what it used to be, and lets be honest, we now have Facebook for all of that.
Mario Armando Lavanadeira aka Perez Hilton ushered in (or so he claims) the beginning of the very first internet influencers, before it was even a thing. I found the beginning of the book about him growing up informative and entertaining, although a little dry. Then, we get to the good part. All the dirt. Wrong.
This book swung and missed on delivering anything we didn’t already know. I was hoping for some more juicy details on his fall out with Gaga, but again, no such luck. In fact, Perez confirms fall fairly huge fall outs with 3 different big name celebs, but manages to deflect any blame. Instead he claims “they got too famous for him.” As they said, there are three different versions, his, hers and the truth. Clearly here we are only getting a very one sided account.
He goes into extreme detail when it comes to his two big TV appearances, which I don’t ever remember seeing. He claims his appearance on Big Brother UK made him the most famous (or popular I can’t remember) contestant in the history of the show. I wouldn’t know, I don’t watch it, but I didn’t know he was on there until this book.
I appreciate how Perez repents in his book, mostly for being the worlds first online bully. He also apologized to Ariana Grande and her mom for a previously undisclosed slight, however I think it would have been more effective if he said it to them directly, first, before publishing it in his memoirs. Who knows, maybe he did, but the way he wrote about it makes me think otherwise.
Another reason I’m only going 3 stars on this book is because I found him to be an unlikeable narrator. I listen to his podcast and enjoy it. His TV hosting gigs that I’ve seen, I’ve liked. However I’ve been listening to a lot of author narrated memoirs lately, and this was not a good one. Perez’s narration style did nothing to make the book more likeable. I’ll admit, it was one I had to power through.
Over all, if you’re looking for a quick and moderately entertaining read, this book is for you. Just don’t expect to be left speechless by the new tidbits of information. There aren’t any.
This audiobook was downloaded for Audible using The Audible Plus Catalog
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