[Book-Review] MontanaBlack

edited on September 13th, 2023 at 08:44 pm

The MontanaBlack book was written by the German YouTuber and Twitch streamer Marcel Eris, “MontanaBlack88“. The book is an autobiography that tells the story of Eris‘ life. Including his childhood, addiction struggles, and rise to fame as a YouTuber and Twitch streamer. As well as his thoughts on gaming, social media, and the internet in general.

The book itself is in German and I don’t know at this point, if it’s available in English or any other languages.

Warning: The review contains topics such as drugs and drug abuse.

Review

Marcel, also called “Monte“, is a German Youtuber from Buxtehube, a smaller town in Germany.
I started to follow Monte a couple years back, I was really interested in him and his story, the journey of his life. Since it was no surprise to me that he struggled when he was younger through some of his stories were already told in videos, I was curious about the book. As I usually don’t read biographies, I was interested in the story of his life.

The book is about the young struggling Monte than his career on Youtube. How he struggled and found but also lost friends through this earlier journey.
How he struggled in school and found his “way out” in drugs, how he got kicked out, stole from his grandparents, and was homeless for some time. But also how he had help from his most beloved people around him and went out of this devil’s hole.

I appreciate the candid and personal nature of the storytelling and the insights into Eris‘ life and career. He is an honest person and has quite a lot to tell.
The writing style is good, I really enjoyed reading through his journey here, even with the dialogues, which can be quite a lot, but it was fine for me.

As, of course, it also attracted criticism from some quarters, with some accusing Eris of glorifying and normalizing harmful behavior, such as drug use.
But I’d rather say that it’s a good thing of him talking about it. Because only through talking, people can made aware of the risk of drug use and it’s abuse. And that it’s not only the “adults’ talking” but at least they are reasonable.

Final thoughts

The writing style and it’s dialogues were pretty easy to follow. Marcel documented his journey well and published an excellent structured insight to this teenage version of him.

Regardless of one’s opinions on Eris and his lifestyle choices. For me, “MontanaBlack” offers a fascinating glimpse into the world of a struggling teenager and how he made it through. It clearly shows that you can get out of it, as long as you really want it.

Rating: C

A+ : 10-9.3 | A: 9.2-8.7 | A- : 8.6-8.0 || B+ : 7.9-7.3 | B: 7.2-6.7 | B- : 6.6-6.0 || C+ : 5.9-5.3 | C: 5.2-4.7 | C- : 4.6-4.0 ||
D+ : 3.9-3.3 | D: 3.2-2.7 | D- : 2.6-2.0 || E+: 2.1-2.4 | E : 2.5-1.8 || F: 1.9-0

Have you read this one? Do you plan to? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments!