When I heard that The Try Guys had written a book called The Hidden Power Of F*cking Up (affiliate link), I was pretty excited. That was until they promoted it to death and I was sick fed up of hearing about it and I was absolutely certain that it was just going to be a money-spinning gimmick. The thing is by this point I had already sacrificed one of my Audible credits to pre-order the book, so I thought I might as well give it a chance…and what’s the point in having a blog if I can’t share my thoughts on these things with all of you?!

So why did I order the audio book and not the actual book?

I am definitely still a real, paper in hands book kinda person but to purchase The Hidden Power Of F*cking Up on Audible would cost me one credit, which I happen to have a collection of, while when I had looked at pre-ordering the actual book on Amazon when I first heard about it I thought it was pretty pricy. Of course with the actual book not only do you get…well, a book that you can hold and read with your very own eyes…but you also get to see the photos which the guys decided to include in the book.

So now that I think I’ve explained all of the background stuff, I guess it’s time to get into the actual review, and of course I’m going to try and keep it as spoiler free as possible!

The book is read by the four guys – Eugene, Keith, Ned and Zach – themselves, which is a really nice touch and adds some charm to the audio version of the book. Sometimes they try to interject on each other’s pieces – I don’t know if this is somehow reflecting footnotes shared in the book or something – but personally I found thinks like this a bit annoying. Thankfully it didn’t happen too often so I wasn’t turned off from the book altogether.

The book is a way for the guys to share how so-called failures throughout their lives have helped to shape them into the people that they are today. Unsurprisingly, there is no particularly groundbreaking epiphanies in the book and I think that it is unlikely that it is really going to be particularly inspiring to anybody who purchases it as a self-help book. As an autobiography concealed as a self help book, however, it is pretty good. As a long time subscriber and fan of the four men and their content, I really enjoyed hearing their stories. To me that was definitely the most interesting and enjoyable thing about the book, but obviously if you bought the book not really knowing who they were then this would probably be lost! I think these stories just highlight how relatable they are to ‘normal people’ which is definitely part of their charm.

To help give their book substance each of The Try Guys took on a challenge of something to try that they could then write about, which if you watch the videos you will already know as they wasted no time in sharing the video content from these experiments on their Youtube channel. Keith tries to be healthier, Ned tries new clothes, Zach tries to be a good boyfriend and Eugene tries to be more outwardly affectionate. I almost wish that they had held these videos back a few weeks to give people a chance with the book – I swear they’ve given away so many spoilers that probably ruined the potential magic of the book because there were really no surprises left! There is definitely such a thing as over promotion.

I’m hoping that now that book is released and the tour is (almost) over that The Try Guys might calm down with the SELLSELLSELL video messaging and get back to making content that can be enjoyed without feeling like you’re having something shoved down your throat.

Have you read (or listened to!) the book? Let me know what you thought in the comments below!