I am finally here to review Shane Dawson’s book!

Honestly, this was probably the book I have been most excited to read so far. Mainly because I love Shane Dawson. He is one of the first YouTubers that I started to watch religiously back in 2011 and since then I have just grown to love him more and more.
So obviously when I found out he was writing a book I was so excited. Shane has always been a very open person online about his life so when I found out this book had stories he had never told on the internet before I was interested.
This is the first YouTuber book that I have read that is specifically about the YouTuber’s life and not something else which I really appreciated because I was definitely interested in learning a lot more about Shane, after watching his videos for about five years how could I not?
Shane’s book is not necessarily an autobiography though it is a “collection of essays” which basically means that each chapter tells a different story about something that happened in his life and a lot of these stories are before YouTube so it was really interesting to learn more about what life was like for Shane before he became internet famous.
In the book there is a mix between serious and funny stories and from the style of the writing you can definitely tell that Shane wrote it, as even within the serious chapters he was able to throw a joke in to lighten the mood. I definitely found myself laughing out loud a few times at some of his jokes.
I really think that this book let’s you see the person Shane really is rather than the personality that you see in his YouTube videos. I know that since he started posting daily on his “Shane” channel he has become a lot more real and less of a character but in the book he really opens up about some personal things that he went through.

In his “My Strange Addictions” chapter, Shane talks about how he gets addicted to things really easily and talks about just how unhealthy his addiction to Splenda got. And this made me think back to when Shane used to vlog, he had mentioned in a few of his vlogs how much he loved Splenda and it was ridiculous but you never really knew how far it went because that was the part he didn’t show in his vlog. There’s so much that we don’t know that happens behind the camera and I really think that people should remember that when they watch YouTubers.
In other chapters of the book Shane talks about his high school/teenager experiences, his struggles with his body image, and he also talks about some of his experiences after he started YouTube as a job. I have to admit that some of the chapters in the book do get quite emotional, there is a chapter where Shane talks about his grandmother which I thought was really sweet. I almost cried, it was so emotional.
Shane also made a short film about one of the chapters in his book, and I watched that before I read the actual chapter. But I really enjoyed the short film he made about it. It was really fun to see his writing come to life like that and the chapter and the short film are basically identical so I would recommend you guys check that out if you are unsure about getting the book.

I think I saw a post by Shane a while ago saying he wanted to make another short film based on the “Astral Projection” chapter in his book which I personally would really enjoy. I mean it’s one thing to imagine it in your own head but to see the author’s vision come to life is even better. And with a YouTuber you know it’s their exact vision and not an adaptation like big feature films based on books.

Another thing that I liked about the book was that before each chapter, there was an illustration by one of Shane’s fans. There was a note at the start of the book from Shane saying that he sent some fans excerpts from the book and they would draw an illustration to go along with it. I thought this was a really creative way to have his fans be a part of his book. Even if it was just the lucky few. Their art was really good and Shane also included a short description about each artist on the back of the illustration which I thought was really nice.
I really hope Shane writes another book like this, this is only a small part of his life and if his story-time videos and this book are anything to go by, I know that he has a lot more crazy adventures ahead and I will be so happy to follow him on these adventures for as long as he is on YouTube and sharing his life with us.
So yeah, I think that that is everything I have to say about Shane’s book. I know I could have probably said a lot more but honestly, I just loved it. I loved every part of it and I know I’m biased because I really like Shane anyway but honestly if you have ever wanted to learn more about the YouTuber behind the camera this book is the perfect example.