If there’s one type of story I love, it’s the type of story where the author is brutally honest with themselves, and is unafraid to speak their mind and to show their emotions whether they are good or bad. Wil Wheaton’s autobiography, Just a Geek: Unflinchingly honest tales of the search for life, love, and fulfillment beyond the Starship Enterprise
Published in 2004, Just a Geek is the story of Wil Wheaton at a stage in his life where he’s happily married with two step children, and struggling to make it as an actor. One night in 2001 he decides to take control of his web presence by starting a blog, which he built himself. In the blog, he discussed his personal life, and struggles with auditions. Most of all, it was Wil being honest. While the news of his new blog spread throughout the web, he dealt with both positive and negative reactions.
As Wheaton continues to blog through his experiences with Star Trek conventions, auditions and antidotes about his days on the Enterprise, I began to realize how smooth the storytelling was (although he states in the author’s note that his early writing was cringe worthy). Most of all, the stories were interesting and funny. While maintaining the semi-daily blog Wheaton realizes that writing is what he loves to do, and begins to take it seriously.
The book itself are reprints of those early blog entries, along with narrative by Wheaton of what takes place before and after each blog post, giving you more perspective into the actual blog entries themselves. Just a Geek is well thought out, very easy to read, and is a satisfying memoir.
There is no doubt Wil Wheaton’s blog has brought him an impressive amount of attention, and his blog in it’s current form on TypePad has evolved considerably over the years. He’s also an avid Twitter user with over 1.8 million followers. Wheaton also appears on SyFy’s Eureka, TNT’s Leverage, The Big Bang Theory (where he plays an ‘evil’ version of himself) and a recurring role on the popular web series The Guild.
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