Reviews

Pageboy by Elliot Page

imscrem's review against another edition

dark emotional hopeful reflective sad tense fast-paced

2.5

I appreciate that Elliot Page took the time to write down his story. I listened to the audiobook, and found it difficult at times to understand what time period in his life he was writing from due to the somewhat jumpy narrative.  I didn’t enjoy hearing about his sexual escapades or the many, many times he was sexually abused, but I have to acknowledge that these are true parts of his story and the book would not have been complete without them. It was uncomfortable to hear about who licked what while I rode the subway. Overall, I this book definitely wasn’t what I expected — I thought it would be a more uplifting take on the trans experience, but came out thinking it’s more of a dismal array of all the ways that people can be horrific to someone for being different. I wish the world was kinder. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Bullying, Child abuse, Cursing, Drug abuse, Drug use, Eating disorder, Emotional abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, Mental illness, Misogyny, Panic attacks/disorders, Pedophilia, Rape, Self harm, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Blood, Stalking, Lesbophobia, Outing, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship, Alcohol, Sexual harassment, Dysphoria, and Injury/Injury detail

Moderate: Cancer, Deadnaming, Death, Physical abuse, Medical content, Kidnapping, Religious bigotry, and Death of parent

Minor: Vomit, Car accident, and Pandemic/Epidemic

nc2000's review against another edition

dark emotional inspiring sad slow-paced

3.5

bealesen's review against another edition

emotional hopeful reflective sad medium-paced

3.5

rufio7's review against another edition

4.0

Interesting exploration of gender dysphoria and queerness. Very candid look into his growth and evolution as an individual and an artist.

xenonhexafluoride's review against another edition

Autobiographies feel hard to impossible to put a number on based on content - who am I to judge someone's lived experience? So I won't.

What I will say is that this feels genuine. A seemingly heartfelt presentation of Page's life up to this point. However, it is hard to follow. Page jumps from year to year, back and forth in time with little to now obvious reasoning to it. It reads much more like an episodic telling of events rather than a cohesive whole. Additionally, the used language is often flowery, semi-poetic, where, at points, it comes off as forced and doesn't really do anything for me. (Plus there's an odd number of mentions of shitting, especially blood?)

Not bad by any means, but sadly not as well written and structured as I'd hoped for.

jkm_reads's review against another edition

emotional

2.75

sydmidd's review against another edition

dark sad

2.0

keobastet's review against another edition

dark emotional informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

5.0

pistasdeblue's review against another edition

4.0

Las historias me parecieron super interesantes, mi corazón sufre por Elliot y todo lo que tuvo que pasar. Valoro demasiado que tomara el valor de hablar, porque así como él, estoy segura que mucha población LGBT+ y con otras diversidades también se encuentra sufriendo actualmente a costa de hacer su sueño realidad.
Ahora, no es un 5 para mi, porque es muy confuso, salta temporalmente y de tema de manera rara y siento que no es cohesiva la forma en que está narrada.
Recomiendo escucharlo, porque ayuda mucho más que leerlo.

rosie_sloan's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Eating disorder

Moderate: Homophobia and Transphobia