In You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), geek icon Felicia Day takes fans through the ups and downs of her eccentric path to success.
As Day herself writes early in the memoir, readers will either know her instantly — or not at all. But whether potential readers are intimately familiar with her work (she has appeared on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Supernatural, and Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, and created the revolutionary webseries The Guild) or have no idea who the redhead is, the memoir is worth a read for anyone looking for humor, tough truths, and no small dose of sage advice.
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) features Day at her most brutally and vividly honest. She casts her sardonic — and occasionally withering — gaze across everything from her childhood and her parents to her career as a violin prodigy, to the Hollywood grind. But Day is equally (if not more) scrutinizing of herself — in fact, the ins and outs of her own “maladjusted” psyche is practically the main character of the memoir.
Day excavates her mistakes, neuroses, and obsessive internal monologue with a fearlessness that belies the subject. She lays bare her perfectionism, addictions, and panic attacks with such snarky self-deprecation that it’s easy to overlook just how personal her confessions really are.
But You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is more than a sadistically funny ego-trip. Day is deeply aware of the impact her work has had on the geek community, and she mines both her successes and her failures for advice on everything from living la vida nerd to coping with anxiety. Though she jokes about offering inspirational coffee cup slogans, Day’s advice is disarmingly earnest, and readers may find themselves paging through with an un-ironic highlighter.
And as the book makes clear, Day has earned her right to dole out advice. She is frank about her journey as an actress and candid about her struggles as a writer and producer. Becoming successful was a study in tortured creativity for Day; being successful, while more rewarding, came with its own overwhelming demands that culminated in an intense period of depression and anxiety. Felicia Day has been through the ringer, and she wants you to know how she made her way out.
Still, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is anything but a downer. With fierce humor, irreverent references, and relentless intelligence, Day uses stories and quirky asides to form the backbone of her personal narrative. Her writing is indelibly of the web — and therefore, indelibly Felicia. She also provides a mixed-media experience for readers, peppering the pages with childhood diary entries, screenshots, and photographic evidence of questionable sartorial decisions.
But even printed in black and white, there is nothing static about this book — and the same could be said for Felicia Day. Fast-paced, brazen, sweet, and introspective, You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) makes it clear that the geek icon has managed to find the grace in nerdy awkwardness by finding it in herself first — and now by sharing it with the world.
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) is available from Amazon, Audible, Barnes & Noble, and your local independent bookstore.