Have A Nice Day Book Review

Buy the book now! 

I recently read Mick Foley's Have a Nice Day for legitimately the tenth time since it's release.  This book is pretty much considered the "holy grail" of all wrestling autobiographies, I'm not going to review it from a "this is what happened" standpoint.  No I'm going to look at it more on how well it holds up today, and what kind of impact it leaves with the reader many years after the fact. 

It had been many years since I embarked on this literary tale of blood and sweat socks, so I was anxious to jump back in.  One thing I noticed was how dated some of the content is. 

Mick regularly refers to the "Monday Night Wars" in current tense, and makes statements like "...this is why Raw is the hottest show on cable TV".  Both of these are understandable because when this book was written (1999) Raw was the coolest thing going, and the wars were all the rage. 

This isn't a bad thing necessarily , it just really makes the book feel old.  Raw hasn't been cool in 12 years or so, so some people may not even remember (or were even born, I'm looking at you Cenation members!) what that time was even like.  This is probably why most people write an autobiography towards the end of their lives.  It covers more ground, and gains a more full perspective of things. 

The book is still quite humorous, but I will say the beloved Al Snow jokes don't quiet have the same zing to them that they used to.  What does still have zing is Mick's stories about life on the road, and all the trials and tribulations he had to endure to get to where we now know him, as the "hardcore legend." 

Which brings me to another point.  Many criticisms of the book over the years were the apparent "bragging rights" throughout the book.  Mainly Mick bragging about how much pain he could endure, or how awesome his promos were, or how hot he thinks his wife is etc.  I don't agree with these assessments at all.  I've always felt Mick came across very humble, factual, and an all around good guy.  I also bet if you added them up, he probably makes fun of himself more than he brags about himself.  By a large margin.  So don't buy into that crap if it happened to stop you from reading. 

All that being said, this isn't a knock on Mick.  I thoroughly enjoy his writings, and consider him to be a huge influence on my own writing style.  Is the book nostalgic?  Yeah I guess it kind of is, but who cares?  I would still give it a perfect 10, and if you haven't read it, you can pick it up cheap online. 

Final Thoughts:

Foley Is Good (his second autobiography) is a close second behind this one, while the other two lag somewhat behind.  So if you like this one, grab Foley is Good as well.  The other two have some problems that I'm not going to address here.  So with that in mind, the only other books that come close to these are Jericho's first book, and Bret Hart's book.  Gee I wonder if that's a coincidence that the best autobiographies are the ones actually written by the man, and not by a ghostwriter?  I'll answer it for you, "No it is not."  Edge wrote his own book two, but sorry dude, not quite up there with them.  (Definitely need a sequel to that one!)