I expected a different book and was looking forward to a lot of behind the scenes information about the movies Arnold played in. However, his movie work hardly gets any attention. Often it’s nothing more than: “and that year we shot this movie, and then that one”. Whereas the book spends a lot of time on the early stages of his career in bodybuilding, and on the later stages of his life when he got into politics. These times may be very interesting for himself, but I didn’t find much value in those chapters.

The book feels unbalanced and was maybe ghostwritten by someone who didn’t get much room to direct the conversation to the most visible aspect of Arnold’s public life, which is his movie work. I assume the book was written on the basis of a number of interviews, and those conversations were clearly heavily influenced by Arnold’s own interests. It often remains superficial and self-congratulatory and glosses over the most interesting parts of his life (the ones where he messes up). I guess Arnold doesn’t want to dwell upon those moments “because I’m an optimistic man”. But it’s in moments of conflict and failure that great lessons can be learned. Lessons that this book unfortunately lacks…