A review by atrixareads
I Love the Bones of You: My Life, My Family, My Father by Christopher Eccleston

4.0

Audiobook. Genuinely moving. I like to see working class memoirs, especially when they try to explore the socioeconomic realities that they and their family faced. The discussions of mental health problems and dementia were well done too. I really enjoyed when it went into detail about film sets and his relationships (good and bad) with other actors. I found it to be an interesting insight into the industry.

What stops me from giving this 5 stars is the structure and writing but also the performance. I think one leads into the other here- it was ghostwritten, which I think then led to a sometimes stilted narration from Eccleston because they aren't actually his words. There were some bits towards the end that were actually slurred- those needed another take. It's also very repetitive in places. It becomes obvious where parts of his life are being skirted round, the drama on Doctor Who being one of them. There are obviously some things that he isn't going to get into for the sake of other people's privacy, such as his divorce, but the absence felt like a big hole.

A bit of a restructure and keeping the content to the themes he really wanted to focus on would have made this memoir almost perfect.