''Just A Geek'' () is a 2004 book of memoirs written by actor and author

Wil Wheaton Richard William Wheaton III (born July 29, 1972) is an American actor. He portrayed Wesley Crusher on the television series ''Star Trek: The Next Generation'', Gordie Lachance in the film ''Stand by Me (film), Stand by Me'', Joey Trotta in '' ...

. Wheaton released a revised follow-up, ''Still Just a Geek'', in 2022.

Background

Many of the stories in ''Just a Geek'' originated from his blog, also called "Just a Geek," which had run for several years at the time. In the book, he talks about life before and after his defining role as

Wesley Crusher Wesley Crusher is a fictional character in the ''Star Trek'' franchise. He appears regularly in the first four seasons of the television series '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'' (''TNG''), and sporadically in its next three seasons. He also app ...

on '' Star Trek: The Next Generation'', including stories about clashes with executives and a disagreement with Jimmy Kimmel over a co-hosting job he didn't receive. Other stories discuss his reaction to the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, his relationship with his wife and stepchildren, and his experience learning

HTML The HyperText Markup Language or HTML is the standard markup language for documents designed to be displayed in a web browser. It can be assisted by technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and scripting languages such as JavaScri ...

, web design, and

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

. In 2012, the book was included as part of the first Humble Bundle collection of ebooks, curated by Cory Doctorow. In 2022's ''Still Just a Geek'', Wheaton annotates the original text with commentary related to his gaining further context, growing as an individual, and how he views the process of writing the book and his life experiences in retrospect.

Critical reception

''Just a Geek'' was praised by the science fiction/fantasy trade publication ''Chronicle'' for its "amused but not bitter" anecdotes. ''

The Oregonian ''The Oregonian'' is a daily newspaper based in Portland, Oregon, United States, owned by Advance Publications. It is the oldest continuously published newspaper on the U.S. west coast, founded as a weekly by Thomas J. Dryer on December 4, 185 ...

'' called it "unflinchingly honest." ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, and popular cul ...

'', however panned the book in a brief blurb titled "Whiner of the Week." The updated follow-up published in 2022 was called "alternately rueful and funny" by

Kirkus Reviews ''Kirkus Reviews'' (or ''Kirkus Media'') is an American book review magazine founded in 1933 by Virginia Kirkus (1893–1980). The magazine is headquartered in New York City. ''Kirkus Reviews'' confers the annual Kirkus Prize to authors of fic ...

Publishers Weekly ''Publishers Weekly'' (''PW'') is an American weekly trade news magazine targeted at publishers, librarians, booksellers, and literary agents. Published continuously since 1872, it has carried the tagline, "The International News Magazine of B ...

gave it a more negative review, calling it "repetitious" and "joyless".

References

External links

Wil Wheaton's blog
2004 non-fiction books Show business memoirs {{actor-bio-book-stub