A while ago I reviewed a game called PewDiePie: Legend of the Brofist, and talked about how people who are primarily known for YouTube content are starting to branch out into other forms of media. I talked about video games, but there’s also another trend that has happened a lot. Many YouTubers nowadays are writing books. I had heard about this before but until I started writing this article I didn’t realize how common this really is. Books like Binge by Tyler Oakley, I, Justine: An Analog Memoir by Justine Ezarik, This Book Loves You by the aforementioned PewDiePie, even famous fiction writer John Green is more well known on the internet as one-half of the Vlogbrothers. I, with my infinite knowledge of the internet, didn’t even know this was so huge a thing!
A lot of these books are usually autobiographical, some of them are fiction, and at least one of them is a cookbook. Yet one of them that I have read doesn’t really doesn’t fit in one of these categories. What you will find inside the pages of The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire by Dan “Danisnotonfire” Howell & Phil “AmazingPhil” Lester is a world. A world that is quite amazing, and most definitely not on fire. (And the award for most corny tagline ever goes to, Isaac Munger!)
The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire was the creation of two YouTubers/radio show hosts Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil. Their reason for creating the book according to them was that in the future, the internet might not exist anymore (I know, I’m terrified by the thought too), and they wanted to make sure that if that day comes, they would have something physical to prove that one day there were these two people named Dan & Phil who made videos for the entire world to see about how strange yet normal their life is. They even made an overly epic trailer with that concept.
A lot of these books are usually autobiographical, some of them are fiction, and at least one of them is a cookbook. Yet one of them that I have read doesn’t really doesn’t fit in one of these categories. What you will find inside the pages of The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire by Dan “Danisnotonfire” Howell & Phil “AmazingPhil” Lester is a world. A world that is quite amazing, and most definitely not on fire. (And the award for most corny tagline ever goes to, Isaac Munger!)
The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire was the creation of two YouTubers/radio show hosts Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil. Their reason for creating the book according to them was that in the future, the internet might not exist anymore (I know, I’m terrified by the thought too), and they wanted to make sure that if that day comes, they would have something physical to prove that one day there were these two people named Dan & Phil who made videos for the entire world to see about how strange yet normal their life is. They even made an overly epic trailer with that concept.
The book contains a lot of different things. Part of the book is sort of an autobiography of the two authors, talking about their college lives, how they got started on YouTube, how they met each other, and interviewing their parents about their actual birth, and they also talk about their different YouTube projects like the annual crossover Q&A event of the century, Phil Is Not On Fire, and their gaming channel, DanAndPhilGAMES. Other parts include four whole pages about the story of two characters Dan uses whenever he needs female characters for a sketch that had zero story beforehand, words of wisdom from Phil’s lion plushie, a quiz to see which colored lounge chair represents you, a few pages of a manga story where they turn into superheroes, the true story of what happened in Vegas and why they never uploaded a video on it (WARNING: Difficult to believe unless you are aware that these two people are living craziness magnets), and lots more assorted insanity.
The entire book is written in a style that will be familiar to anyone who follows the authors’ other works. Most of it is actually presented as a conversation between the two, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writing process for most of it was just that they started talking about a subject and wrote down what they said. Each page also has graphics that make every page feel unique, and will makes it easier to look for one specific page since there isn’t any table of contents to speak of. This book really feels like they took their YouTube channels and stuffed it all into a book, to the point where some parts are just straight adaptions of their YouTube videos.
I can see parts of this book being confusing to people who aren’t familiar with the authors’ previous works though, especially the part I mentioned about the two characters with no prior story, which is almost entirely made up of references to Dan’s videos. Though for the most part things are explained, and most of the book should definitely be entertaining. I give this book a 7 out of 10.
The entire book is written in a style that will be familiar to anyone who follows the authors’ other works. Most of it is actually presented as a conversation between the two, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the writing process for most of it was just that they started talking about a subject and wrote down what they said. Each page also has graphics that make every page feel unique, and will makes it easier to look for one specific page since there isn’t any table of contents to speak of. This book really feels like they took their YouTube channels and stuffed it all into a book, to the point where some parts are just straight adaptions of their YouTube videos.
I can see parts of this book being confusing to people who aren’t familiar with the authors’ previous works though, especially the part I mentioned about the two characters with no prior story, which is almost entirely made up of references to Dan’s videos. Though for the most part things are explained, and most of the book should definitely be entertaining. I give this book a 7 out of 10.