An exhaustive--and exhausting--chronicle of the champ's boxing career and disastrous life. Tyson was dealt an unforgiving hand as a child, raised in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn in a "horrific, tough and gruesome" environment populated by "loud, aggressive" people who "smelled like raw sewage." A first-grade dropout with several break-ins under his belt by age 7, his formal education resumed when he was placed in juvenile detention at age 11, but the lesson he learned at home was to do absolutely anything to survive. Two years later, his career path was set when he met legendary boxing trainer Cus D'Amato. However, Tyson's temperament never changed; if anything, it hardened when he took on the persona of Iron Mike, a merciless and savage fighter who became undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. By his own admission, he was an "arrogant sociopath" in and out of the ring, and he never reconciled his thuggish childhood with his adult self--nor did he try. He still partied with pimps, drug addicts and hustlers, and he was determined to feed all of his vices and fuel several drug addictions at the cost of his freedom (he recounts his well-documented incarcerations), sanity and children. Yet throughout this time, he remained a voracious reader, and he compares himself to Clovis and Charlemagne and references Camus, Sartre, Mao Zedong and Nietzsche's "Overman" in casual conversation. Tyson is a slumdog philosopher whose insatiable appetites have ruined his life many times over. He remains self-loathing and pitiable, and his tone throughout the book is sardonic, exasperated and indignant, his language consistently crude. The book, co-authored by Sloman (co-author: Makeup to Breakup: My Life In and Out of Kiss, 2012, etc.), reads like his journal; he updated it after reading the galleys and added "A Postscript to the Epilogue" as well. At this rate, Tyson may write a multivolume memoir as he continues to struggle and survive.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Sharing a title with Tyson's limited-run one-man Broadway show (soon to air on HBO), this outspoken autobiography simultaneously confirms many of our preconceptions about the celebrity boxer and smashes some of them. Although he came out of poverty and family strife, and although he was following a criminal path at a very early age (he was robbing houses when he was still a preteen and sent to a state reformatory at age 12), and although schooling took a backseat to his fighting career (which also started when he was very young), Tyson does not come across as the semiliterate thug he's so often represented to be. Most readers are familiar with his tumultuous life and career the bizarre behavior in the ring, the sordid behavior out of it but what's most surprising about the book is the introspection and self-awareness displayed by this self-proclaimed trailer park nigga. Leaving aside the question of how much of the actual writing was done by coauthor Sloman who's collaborated on several other noteworthy books, including a couple with Howard Stern it's clear that the voice is Tyson's: it's raw and profane but also smart and witty. Different people have different opinions of Tyson, but he seems to know who he is, and he appears to be OK with that. A fascinating and frequently surprising autobiography.--Pitt, David Copyright 2010 Booklist

Former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson has written a book. Did you know he is a vegan? (c) Copyright 2013. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.