Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir by Wil Wheaton

★★★★★

I'm late to the party as a Wil Wheaton fan, but I'm here now! I loved him on The Big Bang Theory, and I'm also a late-in-life fan of Star Trek, mostly TNG, DS9, Voyager, and Picard. Now, he's one of only a handful of celebrities who helps to normalize masking by posting masked selfies on social media, and as a covid-aware person, I love him for that.

You have to go into this book with the appropriate expectations: It's not a typical memoir; it's a collection of blog posts first published in book form in 2004, with a lot of footnotes written in 2021. Reading this book means constantly jumping back and forth between different time periods. I found myself inadvertently applying 2021 Wil's perspective to the entire text by default, which was confusing, and had to consciously remind myself to use 2004 Wil's mindset when reading content from the original book, and to switch again to Even Younger Wil's frame of mind when reading blog posts written even earlier. Some of the annotations were just injections of humor, but others provided a lot more context and were really interesting, particularly when he noted that something that was supremely consequential for Younger Wil turned out to be just a blip in the trajectory of his life.

Wil Wheaton tells of how he grew into his own skin in his 20s, and then continued to grow personally and professionally in his 30s and 40s. He tells his story well, even when presented in this sort of choppy manner of blog posts and annotations. I like his sense of humor, and as a fellow Gen X-er, I enjoyed his references to 80s and 90s pop culture. He is thoughtful and relatable (at least he was to me, a fellow geek), and I appreciated all he shared about Star Trek, from his personal relationship with his character Wesley Crusher (whom he came to embrace, after a bit of a rocky road) to his interactions with other people from the series. In case it matters to you in a knowing-what-to-expect kind of way, he swears liberally.

Wil Wheaton makes abundantly clear, multiple times in the book, that some of what was published in 2004 was "gross" and "hateful". (p. xix) That he was willing to revisit and examine his previous writings that are now considered shameful (due to misogyny, ableism, etc.), and engage in a public exercise of self-reflection and accountability, shows just how much he (and society in general) has grown and learned in the intervening years. I was truly impressed by his honesty and vulnerability. And it's just good to see a cishet white male put into practice Maya Angelou's quote, "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

I also give Wil Wheaton a lot of credit for the way he openly talked about his depression and anxiety, and the abuse he suffered at the hands of his parents. He modeled self-respect and acceptance, and in doing so, he helps to lessen some of the stigma surrounding mental illness, as well as give strength to others who may be victims of abuse.

I'll admit that my 5-star rating may seem generous in light of the somewhat fragmented reading experience, but mostly I just really enjoyed the content. It was fun!

The Covid Safety Handbook: Staying Safe In An Unsafe World by Violet Blue

★★★½

All quotes refer to page numbers in the digital PDF version that I read.

The writing is very casual. At times, the word choice sounded like conversational banter. 

This book was written by and for the covid-cautious community; if you're a member of this group, you will absolutely feel validated and reassured.

If you're not already sympathetic to the concerns of this group, then much of the content will seem over-the-top. Before reading this book, I had hoped it could serve as a tool for helping to convince non-covid-cautious readers to take covid more seriously. The tone, however, is not one of detached science, nor of persuasive argument; rather, the need to take covid precautions is treated as a given. The book opens with a brief rundown of the many known covid-related health risks (there's a more in-depth discussion of long covid later in the book), but ultimately, The Covid Safety Handbook is geared towards people who are already covid-aware, who want to learn more about ways to better mitigate covid risks, and who welcome suggestions on how to maintain personal boundaries and navigate situations in which their covid-cautiousness conflicts with a society that minimizes or ignores covid.

The Covid Safety Handbook is chock-full of solid information about mitigation measures and ideas for how to manage risk assessment and implement precautions in various scenarios. I consider myself well-informed on covid-related matters, and still I learned new things. I appreciate that the book conveys a sense of gradation; covid-caution is not "all or nothing", and some protection is better than none. I'll also mention that, despite being the most covid-cautious person among my own social circles, I have applied only a portion of the strategies described in this book.

The text is peppered with footnotes; if inclined, readers can jump to the extensive References and Resources section and go directly to a respected source and learn more. (My digital copy even included hyperlinks for one-click access to articles.) That said, occasionally I wished for even more references; for example, there was no footnote when covid was referred to as a "neurotropic vasculitis with a minimum 10% chance of making you bed-bound potentially for life" (p. 41), which sounds exaggerated. Similarly, quotes from everyday covid-cautious people were encouraging to read, yet when attributed only to "A" or "LD" and "LC" (p. 27, 70, respectively, etc.), it made me wonder, Who are these people? If these quotes came from an online forum or social media post, a reference to the forum, or a screen shot of the comment, perhaps with a date stamp, would have added credibility.

Though thorough in its scope, the book often felt "mile wide, inch deep", which is understandably consistent with its "handbook" designation; I suspect the author made a conscious decision to not delve too deeply into explanations of why or how things work in order to keep the content more high-level and accessible for the average reader. (Plus, as mentioned, further details are available by following reference links.) At times, though, I wished at least for more accurate wording, for example, I would have liked to see the words "rapid antigen test" to differentiate at-home tests from PCR lab tests in the bullet point, "You’re contagious if your test is still positive." (p. 29) I also noticed a number of editing mistakes.

My rating of 3.5 stars is mainly due to the grievances mentioned; I felt I had to lower my otherwise 4-star rating, as reading this book was overall a positive, helpful experience for me. I especially appreciated the many valuable, up-to-date resources, and the latter chapters that addressed the emotional and psychological toll of being covid-cautious in a covid-minimizing world.