Has anyone else read "Moondust" by Andrew Smith and noted its peculiar writing style?

It contains a series of interviews with the nine people who walked on the moon and are still alive. This is fascinating stuff, but it's also a very frustrating book because the author spends almost as much time describing his own, completely irrelevant, childhood, not to mention his personal musical taste, dress sense, and much else in tedious detail.

I've noticed this approach once before in another widely acclaimed book: "Stasiland" by Anna Funder. It was just as annoying then. Why don't reviewers pick up on this? Or am I alone in thinking that this writing style spoils otherwise great books?

Tom