“If you’ve listened to Adam Carolla on the radio, you’ve probably heard about 90% of these stories before in some form or another. I guess what you’re paying for with the book is a more coherent collection that has some structure to it.
I listened to the audiobook, which was an interesting experience for a couple reasons.
1. Rather than reading his own book out loud, Carolla seems to get the beats of a story and then just retell it, which suits me just fine. I’m sure that’s annoying to some people out there, but I think he himself would probably admit that his strength lies in talking more than it does in written prose, so why not play to your strengths?
2. After a couple chapters, he recorded short pieces with the people he’d written about. It was pretty cool, and it was a nice bonus to actually get the perspective of his friend Ray, who corroborated some of the stories about him, and to hear from Dr. Drew who told some stories that weren’t included in the book.
3. There were parts where he actually laughed or said things in the narration that made me think he was enjoying doing the audiobook. That was refreshing.
4. At no point did he have illusions about what he was doing. So many audiobooks feel, to me, like they are performed like old time radio dramas. I mean, why does Tom Stechshulte have to read the title and then say, “Narrated by Tom Stechshulte”? He IS Tom Stechshulte, so it feels weird and formal. In this one, Adam kept referring to the fact that he was reading an audiobook, explaining the pictures you would be seeing if you actually had the book, and referring to how long he’d been in the studio recording the thing. It was fitting because it’s memoir anyway, so why not add a little bit about recording the book while you’re sitting in front of the mic?
I think what sold me on the audiobook originally was figuring that he’s a radio guy, so a narrated version of this would make sense. But after listening to it, what I really enjoyed is that the change in format also caused a change in the material. Audio FELT like the right format for it, and I don’t think that was an accident.
I’d like to see more audiobooks take this approach, adding and subtracting material or reading it in such a way that you really feel like reading it and listening to it are two different experiences, and that if they’re going to take the time to record an audibook, they might as well make it something more than 8 hours of someone reading out loud.”