Pageboy: A Memoir

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If the little man does throw a wobbly on the day, then bribing him with sweets, toys or other special treats is certainly an option to consider (but we didn’t tell you that!). I'll prove to you all that I need nothing. The little voice would brag with a creak of a side smile. pg. 78

This is a well written and at times poetic book. The descriptions of people, places, relationships, and to himself are vivid and well said. Elamin: Mel, I appreciate you reading the book. I appreciate you connecting with it, but also being here to share the ways that you connected with it. Thank you so much for your time. In a lighter way, I also love all the celebrity stuff. I love hearing about the cast of Whip It and going to parties at Drew Barrymore's house, and having Alia Shawkat trying to set him up with somebody, and all that sort of stuff is really fun to get a little peek inside of. You get that out of a celebrity memoir every time, and it's nice that we get both that and the heavy, big-capital-G gender stuff in this one. He does a good job describing his gender dysphonia over the years from a very young age until well into his adulthood. I was both surprised and not surprised about his feelings of confusion and his levels of awareness. Searing, deeply moving, and incredibly poignant... This isn’t simply a book on what it means to be trans, it’s about what it means to be human." —Alok Vaid-MenonBut I would rather remember, I’d rather the hurt than not—at least I got it love you, at least I felt your love for me.” The audiobook is a good one, though I do recommend speeding up the narration if you normally don't, as he speaks pretty slowly. I normally do audiobooks at between 1.1x and 1.25x speed, but I had this one higher.

This book will be released in a month, exactly, and I'm counting the days to read it. I can't wait! A personal aside: His smoking drove me crazy but tobacco smoking always drives me crazy. I hope that he no longer smokes or will stop. He's very well-read, often talking about books he's read, and it's obviously affected his writing for the better. I can't help but think the plethora of books he's read informed this book. He's fond of quoting Vonnegut.I think a lot more people need to listen to trans people, allow their voices to be heard and learn about their experiences more overall. There is too much hatred and vitriol out there in this world still. We can work together to help stamp it out, but as a society, we sadly still have a long way to go. I felt like a huge weight lifted, immediately, like overnight, because that really was just so challenging and insufferable, being as closeted as I was, and for as long as I was. I didn't come out till I was 27. But that wasn't the end of the story.

However, I've never felt like a male either, even in my tomboy days, so it's not something I relate to. For this reason I like to read about others' experiences who are transgender. With Juno’s massive success, Elliot became one of the world’s most beloved actors. His dreams were coming true, but the pressure to perform suffocated him. He was forced to play the part of the glossy young starlet, a role that made his skin crawl, on and off set. The career that had been an escape out of his reality and into a world of imagination was suddenly a nightmare. stars from me because narratively, it doesn’t flow as cohesively as it should when jumping from the past to the present day. It is his story to tell, and I respect Elliot immensely, but I would have rather read his experiences growing up more linear. I see a lot of others agreeing here. More editing to shuffle around these chapters would have really helped here. If this has been down, I easily could have rated it higher.

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I could not detect myself. I didn't transform into me - the me I knew I was - like the other boys did. I was desperate to wake up from this bad dream, my reflection making me increasingly ill. Closing my eyes I'd find the memories, the moments of euphoria, of witnessing myself, praying I'd find that again. pg. 144 I resent that we were cheated out of our love, that beautiful surge in the heart stolen from us. I am furious at the seeds planted without our consent, the voices and the actions that made our roads to the truth unnecessarily brutal. pg. 179 If you publish a book, even if it's your own personal journey and feelings and whatnot, I am going to judge it as any other book. If it's not written well, I'm going to say so. Like listening to a friend ... Now is an excellent time to read this humanizing and well-written memoir’ Associated Press As many have pointed out, the author eschews a linear retelling of his life, in favor of bouncing around in time and attempting to tie things together thematically, or just as it occurs to him. Had I not just finished Andrew Rannells' new book right beforehand, which uses a similar template, that probably would have irked me more. But it IS sometimes difficult to tell just where you are timewise, especially as the actor rarely pinpoints such tales with what he is working on at the time, which might have provided welcome signposts to where in his life/career we are.