Happy People Are Annoying

Peck’s audio memoir gets off to a hilarious start as he introduces the book in a whispery posh accent and then breaks into his real, jovial voice saying, “Sorry, I swear to God, I’m not going to read the whole book in that voice!” Listeners can hear the smile in Peck’s amiable and droll narration as the former child star of Nickelodeon’s Drake & Josh recounts transitioning into a successful adult acting career and becoming an accomplished writer. In the chapter “Too Fat for Commercials,” he recalls losing out on auditions as a preteen because of his first love: food. While Peck’s memoir produces a lot of laughs, he’s also candid about the perils and pressures of teenage stardom; at 18, he discovered “drugs and alcohol were like a water truck in the middle of a desert for me—a respite from a life trudging along dehydrated.” His recollections of years of addiction and getting sober are harrowing and heartening.