The Amazing Book Is Not On Fire

Hello reader,
In this book is a world. A world created by two awkward guys who share their lives on the internet!
We are Dan and Phil and we invite you on a journey inside our minds! From the stories of our actual births, to exploring Phil's teenage diary and all the reasons why Dan's a fail.
Learn how to draw the perfect cat whiskers, get advice on what to do in an awkward situation and discover which of our dining chairs represents you emotionally. With everything from what we text each other, to the time we met One Direction and what really happened in Vegas...

I'm a huge fan of Danisnotonfire and AmazingPhil. Or, I was at least. That sounds super ominous, I still am, just not quite so hardcore. I discovered their youtube channels around 2012 -2013 and I watched just about everything they made. I fell in love with their quirky personalities, their friendship and their far more nerdy and down to earth videos compared to other youtubers. In the past year though, I've gone off most youtubers. I just don't really have the time or need any more. I do still follow a select few (Jack Howard, Daniel J Layton and Hazel Hayes, primarily) and while I do still follow Dan and Phil, they just don't make much content any more (and maybe I've grown up enough to realise I'll never be their best friend anyway). But I never doubted I'd buy their book. Not their book. I had to read it.

So what is their book? It's not a biography. It's not fiction. It's sort of humours. It's part drivel. It's scripts for video ideas that I would have preferred to watch rather than read. It's old letters and diaries with hand writing I can barely read. It's a fictitious account of what happened it Vegas. It's rather cute. It's also rather boring. It takes less than 3 hours to read cover to cover. It's completely irrelevant to any non-fans or people who don't know them. It's probably gold to super-fans who must. know. EVERYTHING. ... Their TABINOF Tour sounds like it was pretty damn fantastic though.

To summarize I don't regret buying this book. It's fine. The cover and spine is pretty. I like the guys. But the book is just extended fan service (which is totally okay - just a bit disappointing when you were hoping for something a bit more substantial).

THE AMAZING BOOK IS NOT ON FIRE: THE WORLD OF DAN AND PHIL by Dan Howell & Phil Lester ISBN13: 9781785031090 224 pages / Published on October 8th 2015

Review by Iben Jakobsen, Borough of Books, 2015