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A review by callo
Pageboy by Elliot Page
challenging
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
1.75
I feel bad giving this book the rating I did because I really wanted to like it. It's Elliot Page! But I just found it near impossible to get through. I try to never give up on books but this one was testing me.
First the order is so jarring. I think the last few chapters made up for it a little bit but for the majority of the book I just felt lost. I was all "wait is he out in this scene or not because it changes the context if he is" because I just could not keep track of where we were on the timeline. I understand if writing it this way felt true to him and his experience but I think it is at the expense of the reader a bit.
Second I just did not like his writing style. Again he probably wrote it in a way that feels true to him but I felt like it was kind of insufferable. It just felt a little pretentious to me, trying to make everything a metaphor or trying to make a paragraph into poetry. And I think it works for some people but it just really really did not work for me.
Lastly, some of the subject matter felt off or like it could have been shorter. There were times where I read a whole chapter and didn't feel like I needed to in order to get the big picture. Some just felt out of place and unnecessary. Or like they were repeating things from previous chapters until the last couple of pages in that chapter add something new. I just felt like they could have been done differently. I also feel like there were times that he was kind of preachy about something and would give a whole history lesson on it. It's not that I don't want to hear about indigenous people or ecological practices but it just felt like a telling rather than showing moment. He could have said how he felt without stopping the story to tell us about it.
I'm by no means trying to say no one can enjoy this book. Many people seem to have found it very important to them. It just really wasn't something for me. I think Elliot Page and I are very different people and reading this book made that very apparent. I think it's awesome he made a book about his experience, he has been brave with everything he's gone through. Overall, I don't feel changed by it and wish I had read another book.
First the order is so jarring. I think the last few chapters made up for it a little bit but for the majority of the book I just felt lost. I was all "wait is he out in this scene or not because it changes the context if he is" because I just could not keep track of where we were on the timeline. I understand if writing it this way felt true to him and his experience but I think it is at the expense of the reader a bit.
Second I just did not like his writing style. Again he probably wrote it in a way that feels true to him but I felt like it was kind of insufferable. It just felt a little pretentious to me, trying to make everything a metaphor or trying to make a paragraph into poetry. And I think it works for some people but it just really really did not work for me.
Lastly, some of the subject matter felt off or like it could have been shorter. There were times where I read a whole chapter and didn't feel like I needed to in order to get the big picture. Some just felt out of place and unnecessary. Or like they were repeating things from previous chapters until the last couple of pages in that chapter add something new. I just felt like they could have been done differently. I also feel like there were times that he was kind of preachy about something and would give a whole history lesson on it. It's not that I don't want to hear about indigenous people or ecological practices but it just felt like a telling rather than showing moment. He could have said how he felt without stopping the story to tell us about it.
I'm by no means trying to say no one can enjoy this book. Many people seem to have found it very important to them. It just really wasn't something for me. I think Elliot Page and I are very different people and reading this book made that very apparent. I think it's awesome he made a book about his experience, he has been brave with everything he's gone through. Overall, I don't feel changed by it and wish I had read another book.