Will Smith book review

For as long as I can remember, I've been obsessed with The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. Well, with Will Smith, well, with the Will Smith I thought I knew. Keep reading to find out what surprised me about Will Smith. 

Hey, it's Kyla Denanyoh. Today, I'm reviewing the book, Will. Will Smith and Mark Manson wrote this book. Mark Manson wrote the book The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F***, which I reviewed and which is on my YouTube channel. Mark Manson is a great writer, and he teamed up with Will Smith to help him write his biography. The genre of this book is nonfiction. The theme of this book is biography. 

Let me tell you, I thought I knew Will Smith. There's even a time in the book when he says that coming into someone's home on their TV makes them feel like they know you. I don't know anything about Will Smith. I did not know anything. Oh, and let me say that Will Smith was 100% wrong about how Jada met his grandmother or Gigi. Put it out there; read the book to understand the reference. 

One of the most surprising things about the book is how much I did not know about Will Smith. That sounds wild. It's not like I'm related to or know him from anywhere. I have known him since childhood and grew up watching the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. My homegirl from the sixth grade and I would watch the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. We would be on the phone the entire episode. We would only talk during commercial breaks. Did you see what Ashley had on? Oh my God, Will Smith is so cute. Oh, did you know what he was wearing? Oh my God, Ashley, I love her outfit. And then the commercial break would end, and we were watching the show holding the phone, the landline phone. I tied up the phone for 30 minutes. I don't care who else needs to talk to nobody if The Fresh Prince is on. We're watching it. 

I was so surprised by how many things I learned about Will Smith. So, off jump, let's say this: the biggest plot twist to the book, to be honest, is how many things you know he didn't include. I'm reading it, and I'm like, what, like, I know he let Jada read it before it came out. He probably let his parents read it before it came out. There are some stories in there I know he couldn't have even included, and I'm just like, as raw and honest as the book is, it is still his portrayal. I'm like, this man has had a life. 

I love the relationship he had with his father. That made me think about my father a lot. Right off jump, the story about building the brick wall, and I'm like, can this be my favorite quote? It's within the first five pages because that laid the foundation. I love that Will even started with that example because it lets you know that his work ethic was always there. That tells me why it is so important that we only know what Will wanted us to see that he put into the book. That is so important because Will Smith is a person, and I will say that again: he has a whole life. What we see on TV, these portrayals in movies and films, is what he shares with us. What we listen to when we're listening to getting jiggy with it or dancing to Aladdin, he's working, right? That's him working. We are seeing what he wants to portray. As an actor who has never been formally trained, he's got to be the greatest of all time because he has built a career to become a movie superstar based on his work ethic and discipline, which is mind-blowing.

I was reading the book and thought Jazzy Jeff was more significant than Will Smith. Then you flip, and you're like, that's how he got onto The Fresh Prince. And you're reading, and you're like, that's why there was a Wild Wild West song and a song for this and a song for that. 

I love that his success was not a fluke. It was well-planned and well-orchestrated. Some people can read the book and say, " Oh, okay. You collect the top 10 grossing movies and make sense of them; you see the pattern." People don't do that. I would have thought this was a fairy tale if he had not written his book. But this is his life like I can't. I cannot even fathom. I loved the book. 

Even the things I learned about Jada Pinkett Smith surprised me because I know her from a different world, and then, of course, I've seen movies that she was in. I mean, she'll always be Peaches. Always, always, always. But it's like Jada Pinkett Smith is a person, too. She's not just here to entertain me and for me to watch her on TV. She's got a whole life behind all of this. She's got a whole life and family with Will Smith. It's more than what you see. 

He tells us the good, the bad, and the ugly. I was so grateful to read this honest story and to learn from it.

That leads directly to the question of whether I would reread this book. Yes, yes, yes. I even tweeted that I still need to finish the book Will, and I want to reread it. It wasn't even a rags-to-riches story because Will came from a two-parent household. He just worked hard, made a plan, and made it happen. And it was beautiful. It was wonderful to read and beautiful to learn from.

I hope that when Will Smith finished the book, he would sit down, look at it, and say, "I am not a coward anymore. I have put myself out here. I've been transparent. I have been vulnerable. Cowards don't do that." So, if you should ever see this, if anyone ever tells him, you are not a coward. It takes guts to do what you did. It takes guts to tell us your story because people will read it and say, "That could never happen to anyone else. He got lucky." But even that, to step into the opportunity to give yourself a couple of hours and then be like, "All right, I'm about to go do this for Quincy Jones," it takes guts. 

Let me know in the comments if you have read this biography or if you like them at all. 

Until the next book review, Kyla