If you’re a fan of WWE, or of the New Day, you’re well aware that there has been a New Day book on the horizon for a while now. They’ve been actively shilling it since at least November, and on March 14, fans can finally get their hands on a real-life copy of The Book of Booty: Shake It, Love It, Never Be It.
St. Martin’s Griffin was kind enough to send us a review copy, and now we can pass our knowledge of having already read the book on to you, the reader!
While the New Day might not have sat down and actually written this entire book, they were very closely involved the whole way through, as you’ll see when you power your way through it, and they’ve taken care to make sure the Book of Booty is as on-brand as humanly possible. And if you know anything about the New Day, you know that personal brand can be pretty wide-reaching at times.
First things first: if you were expecting this to be a sort of actual this-is-a-real-book biography in the vein of Chris Jericho’s numerous memoirs, or Daniel Bryan’s WWE autobiography … it isn’t that. This is more like a miniaturized version of a coffee table book, and while it does in fact tell the tale of the New Day quite extensively, it’s more of a collection of cool things to look at rather than … just a bunch of words.
And really, would a book with a bunch of words on boring white paper be what the New Day is about? Absolutely not.
Right from jump street, you know this book is on-brand and fully tongue in cheek starting with the dedication page.
Dedicated to Francesca I
2015-2016
The beat goes on.Also dedicated to Francesca II
2016-2016
Please stop destroying our trombones.
And with that, we’re off and running. The book is vibrant and bursting with color on every page — just like the New Day! There are graphs and graphics breaking down New Day’s 483-day tag title reign — which the book focuses heavily on — as well as getting-to-know-you Q and A sessions with all three members, infographics, New Day quizzes, and a bunch more. To be honest, this book more closely resembles a book-sized and book-length version of the dear, departed WWE Magazine than any book you’ve ever read before. Except that it’s entirely about the New Day.
All of those are good things, of course. The whole thing is undeniably as close as possible to being in the voice of Big E, Kofi Kingston, and Xavier Woods. Woods breaks down his favorite hairstyles, Kofi lists his favorite pairs of shoes, and Big E even gives you step-by-step instructions on how to perfect your hip gyrations.
Peppered throughout are little two-page entries that tell the story of the New Day, from Woods recruiting them, to their gospel era, to the crowds coming around on them through sheer force of will. These passages are pretty honest, and a good dose of reality in between by-the-numbers spreads and getting to know New Day’s various animal mascots.
If you have a younger fan in your life who loves the New Day, this book would make a perfect gift, or if you miss that WWE Magazine aesthetic or love the New Day aesthetic, you should probably check it out. If you plunked down money for a box of Booty-O’s … you should probably pick this up as well.
My hope is that someday, one of these three men will actually sit down and write a for-real autobiography, but that just wouldn’t make sense as a stand-alone New Day product. The Book of Booty does. And then some.
