Gok Wan

Having not listened to an audio book before (save for when I was a kid), I wasn’t sure if I’d enjoy the format, so in hindsight this was a good one to start with as Gok himself was the narrator. For those not from the UK, Gok Wan is basically a camp Chinese guy who works wonders with women’s dress sense & body confidence, & I love him. I wasn’t expecting much from his autobiography though, as celebrity biographies are ten a penny these days & churned out by ghost writers in a matter of days (or so it seems). I’d seen a programme he did on telly a while back, about his own struggles with weight & body image, so I did expect a degree of honesty & openness, but what I got was more than I had anticipated. Gok delves into his struggles with self confidence, battles with eating & difficulties in finding his rightful place in the world on a deeper level than I would have expected. In many ways it was a risk to take whilst he’s still so very much in the spotlight, but I expect he is shrewd enough to know that the fans who love him do so because he has been as damaged as the rest of us & has turned it into a positive. The book isn’t flawless though – it isn’t ever going to win any literacy prizes, & sometimes I wondered if having Gok narrate it had a negative effect as there was no balance...but I guess the same could be said for all autobiographies. What it all boiled down to is that this was a fairly raw memoir, one which I really enjoyed & which only served to fuel my adoration for Gok!… (mere)