Name: Will
Rating: 4.325581395348837 (86 reviews)
ISBN: 9781984877925

Will; Manson Smith (Mark)

Autobiography of Will Smith, written with the author of 'The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck' and 'Every Thing is F*cked'. Part self-help, part biography, Will is talking about what is important to him.

Will

Divertido. Es increíble ver el viaje del actor y leer sus anécdotas a través de los años. El final del libro - cuando smith cumple 50 - se torna aburrido y sinsabor comparado con el comienzo.

Cristian Garcia

Ricardo

Please listen to the audio version.
What a masterpiece read by a master storyteller and masterfully edited as well.

Heiki Riesenkampf

I was surprised by how interesting and enjoyable this book was. The fact that Will Smith was also doing the audio-narrative added a lot to the book. It was lovely to hear a very humane story about someone who I did not know much about. Very much relatable, yet insightful and entertaining.

Mark Manson

Will Smith

Die Autobiografie

Melissa Palmer

Good

Good and honest memoir. It was interesting to learn about his background and how he started in show business. I recommend it.

Lisa Lindquist 

Matija

book about a dude that slapped that other dude

Oliver Mateman

I’m definitely reading this book again.

appreciated knowing about his upbringing and his internal thoughts and struggles. very brave considering that he’s one of the most famous people ever. huge respect.

kareem choucair 

Keven Wang

This book needs to be listen to. Not read on paper

Ivy X

"The real question is how do I want to live?" 

This book was thoroughly entertaining and I had so much fun learning about Will Smith's career and life. With that said, he does have a really big ego and it shows in the way he wrote this book and in a lot of his life experiences. 

The one chapter where he talks about Jada's first meeting with his grandma was unhinged. It was not funny and quite frankly very disturbing.

Arturo Hernández

Heard this on Audible, Will’s performance is extremely engaging. There are clear highlights on the story of his life and pretty emotional moments throughout the narration.

Nicola Fisher

I'm not a Will Smith fan. I don't go out of my way to watch his films. Back in the day I watched The Fresh Prince and I've seen films like Independence Day and Enemy of the State. 

His book, Will, was a surprise. Compulsive reading from the start, it was a fascinating insight into a man who was driven to achieve, and the price he paid. 

It's a warts and all autobiography. The book takes us through Will's own Hero's Journey. Does he get the elixir? Well, I think he peels back the layers and has a clearer understanding of himself, and the challenges of living his truth.

Apart from the dodgy ending, I finished the book with a greater appreciation of what life is like for someone like Will and, however glorious that life might appear from the outside, but how easy it is to lose yourself in it.

Raúl Barroso Moreno

This book is spectacular. I found it incredibly interesting considering how relatable some of his stories were. Exposing himself in a way that I find very admirable considering his public image. The combination between the book in paper and his audible version (narrated by him) was also superb. The audio version included some excerpts that made commentary on some songs very cool to hear. I learned a ton from Will Smith by reading this book and a bit about myself too.

One of the most dynamic and globally recognized entertainment forces of our time opens up fully about his life, in a brave and inspiring book that traces his learning curve to a place where outer success, inner happiness, and human connection are aligned. Along the way, Will tells the story in full of one of the most amazing rides through the worlds of music and film that anyone has ever had. Will Smith’s transformation from a fearful child in a tense West Philadelphia home to one of the biggest rap stars of his era and then one of the biggest movie stars in Hollywood history, with a string of box office successes that will likely never be broken, is an epic tale of inner transformation and outer triumph, and Will tells it astonishingly well. But it's only half the story. Will Smith thought, with good reason, that he had won at life: not only was his own success unparalleled, his whole family was at the pinnacle of the entertainment world. Only they didn't see it that way: they felt more like star performers in his circus, a seven-days-a-week job they hadn't signed up for. It turned out Will Smith's education wasn't nearly over. This memoir is the product of a profound journey of self-knowledge, a reckoning with all that your will can get you and all that it can leave behind. Written with the help of Mark Manson, author of the multi-million-copy bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, Will is the story of how one person mastered his own emotions, written in a way that can help everyone else do the same. Few of us will know the pressure of performing on the world's biggest stages for the highest of stakes, but we can all understand that the fuel that works for one stage of our journey might have to be changed if we want to make it all the way home. The combination of genuine wisdom of universal value and a life story that is preposterously entertaining, even astonishing, puts Will the book, like its author, in a category by itself. “It’s easy to maneuver the material world once you have conquered your own mind. I believe that. Once you've learned the terrain of your own mind, every experience, every emotion, every circumstance, whether positive or negative, simply propels you forward, to greater growth and greater experience. That is true will. To move forward in spite of anything. And to move forward in a way that brings others with you, rather than leave them behind.” —Will Smith

Fraser Simons

It’s Will. He delivers a good performance. What he is narrating is a very specific story that is geared toward a self-help rhetoric; unfortunately a fairly redundant one. You cannot make yourself happy by making money, you have to nurture yourself. So, the real reason to consume this is for the performance and the entertainment value while navigating to that point. 

He goes into his fear of being a coward, but doesn’t really link it to gender roles or anything much beyond the fact that his dad was just like that. He tells you that his father was physically abusive and at one point, even while getting side tracked running to get some smokes, his dad told him that every single thing he does a mission. You either succeed, or you’re dead. Yes, his dad was in the army. And yes, Will’s success coming from a trauma response makes a heck of a lot of sense. Though, we also learn other key people literally in one room mostly was the reason he made it, an orchestration of Quincy Jones. 

And then… with these things established, he simply launches into his career and highlights and his macro level trajectory to massive success. The vulnerability never really comes back. And I’m not very convinced it was ever really present.

To be honest, this book is calculating. There is a performative vulnerability at key sections fostering trust between the reader and Will. And, to be clear, that’s a fine way to construct this kind of a story. But, he often displays a lack of critical self awareness and skates over accountability in favour of easy contrition. I promise you that if you take all the possessions of your partner, pour lighter fluid on them, and then light them all when she arrives home to witness this act, you are not a well person. And frankly, saying she didn’t deserve that and moving on, and you were both young yada yada, is one thing. But he tries to isolate that event. Except… between the lines or in passing—presumably he thinks some of these things aren’t a big deal?—there is even more concerning behaviour. All of which mostly just made me think that he was a person that confronted his trauma far too late for those around him. 

Ultimately, he navigates to an almost comical ending for me. He ends up going on the spiritual awakening journey and doing pseudo-mystical, drug induced trips, hires a life coach therapist because he doesn’t know who he is (as if that’s a singular experience at mid life). He also comes to the realization that memory isn’t a video, but a personal rendering that is not accurate. Or that, and I am not kidding here, other peoples’ feelings actually matter and should be considered. If you’re 20 maybe some of these epiphanies will be profound to you, but his own journey ultimately conforms to an archetypical journey, which only adds to the sterility and artificial aspects within the structure of the book. That’s why it was comical to me. Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad he’s doing some work on himself and is in a good place now, at 50 years old, but make no mistake, this is, and feels like, a performance that is most likely simply another tick off the bucket list—rather than a wholehearted reckoning and self-examination of an individual.

Sarah Ryan

I have been listening to audiobooks for nearly 2 decades and I have never listened to a book that leveraged the medium as well as this book does. When he is narrating a section about specific music or a scene from the Fresh Prince you actually here the relevant audio making the experience so much richer. This was also an incredibly well written and constructed memoir. Very enjoyable listen

Shantesh Patil

If you decide you want this one, please get the audiobook. It is simply the definitive way to experience this incredible memoir of Will Smith. His journey from the beginning to now is a fascinating one. All the emotional highs lows are laid bare. It's equal parts insightful and funny. I have always believed African American voices to be one of the most powerful and impactful and this one is narrated by Will himself.

Besides this key point the other advantage the audiobook brings is that it sprinkled throughout with music and songs that were such a big part of his life. As an added bonus, Will Smith does the most awesome impressions of other people that are part of the book 

Will

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