Death Punch'd

This book was awful.

I am a huge Five Finger Death Punch fan, and thought I would love this book. I came away still liking the band, but not liking Jeremy Spencer.

His dad, an actual author, helped him write it and it still comes off as a 14 year old's writing style. I suppose Jeremy wanted to keep the way he actually speaks intact, but it paints him as perpetually immature.
The book is gross; painfully gross, and for the record I have read and liked The Heroin Diaries and Tommyland, both of which are also pretty gross. The narrative is told from two ends- one chapter from his childhood, one chapter as an adult trying to form a band, etc. This is not necessarily a bad choice in general, but was poorly executed. For one, his foray with drugs and girls as a teenager leads directly into extra douchey forays with drugs and girls as a member of FFDP. The result is skin-crawling. I also have a personal preference for stories to be told mostly linearly, so that might have had something to do with it.

Overall, Jeremy comes across as a brat who wanted to write a book about how he's no longer a brat. He pays lip service to how awful he was when he was younger and blames the drugs, but even as a sober author, continuously brags about his sexual conquests in portapottys and closets. “Way cool!”. He berates singer Ivan Moody at any opportunity, then says something nice about him, and then lashes out at him again. The band's current bass player, Chris Kael, who is arguably the most interesting and positive member of the band, is mentioned exactly one time.

The book ends in a weird spot as well, SPOILER

The entire book builds to his crazy drug addiction and then he has an overdose and almost dies. He passes out, and the final chapter is him basically going “Wild, huh?! Oh I didn't die, but I'm still cool! And no more drugs, bye.” End Spoiler

Don't buy this book if you want to read a fascinating memoir. You should only buy this book if you want to hear Jeremy Spencer's self aggrandizing stories. It gets two stars only because I was somewhat interested to hear the origin of the band.