I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons

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Simon & Schuster, Limited, 2018 - Biography & Autobiography - 400 pages
Superstar comedian and Hollywood box office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.

It begins in North Philadelphia. He was born an accident, unwanted by his parents. His father was a drug addict who was in and out of jail. His brother was a crack dealer and petty thief. And his mother was overwhelmingly strict, beating him with belts, frying pans, and his own toys. The odds, in short, were stacked against our young hero, just like the odds that are stacked against the release of a new book in this era of social media (where Hart has a following of over 100 million, by the way). But Kevin Hart, like Ernest Hemingway, JK Rowling, and Chocolate Droppa before him, was able to defy the odds and turn it around. In his literary debut, he takes the reader on a journey through what his life was, what it is now, and how he's overcome each challenge to become the man he is today.

And that man happens to be the biggest comedian in the world, with tours that sell out football stadiums and films that have collectively grossed over $3.5 billion. He achieved this not just through hard work, determination, and talent: It was through his unique way of looking at the world.

Because just like a book has chapters, Hart sees life as a collection of chapters that each person gets to write for himself or herself. "Not only do you get to choose how you interpret each chapter, but your interpretation writes the next chapter," he says. "So why not choose the interpretation that serves your life the best?"

Candid, wickedly funny, and unforgettable, I Can't Make This Up is more than a memoir. It is a training manual designed to teach you a positive, drama-free outlook on life and code of conduct that will serve you, serve others, and serve your biggest, boldest dreams.

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About the author (2018)

Kevin Hart is an American actor and comedian, born in 1979 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has won numerous awards including the 2012 BET Award for Best Actor, several NAACP Image Awards, 2014 Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Award for Favorite Funny Star, several Teen Choice Awards, and in 2016 and 2017 several People's Choice Awards. His films include Central Intelligence, Think Like a Man, Get Hard, Ride Along, The Wedding Ringer, and The Secret Life of Pets. His recent book, I Can't Make This Up: Life Lessons, is a 2017 New York Times bestseller. Neil Strauss is the author of The Game and Rules of the Game. He is also the coauthor of several celebrity memoirs including The Long Hard Road Out of Hell with Marilyn Manson, The Dirt with Mötley Crüe, How to Make Love Like a Porn Star: A Cautionary Tale with Jenna Jameson, and Don't Try This at Home with Dave Navarro. He also writes for Rolling Stone and The New York Times. He won the ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for his coverage of Kurt Cobain's suicide for Rolling Stone and his profile of Eric Clapton in The New York Times Arts and Leisure section.

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