Elliot Page – Pageboy: Book Review & Audio Summary

Book Info

• Book name: Pageboy: A Memoir
• Author: Elliot Page
• Genre: Memoir, LGBTQ+
• Pages: 288
• Published Year: 2023
• Publisher: Flatiron Books
• Language: English
• Awards: Winner of the 2023 Libby Book Award for Best Memoir and Autobiography; #1 New York Times Bestseller; Named in New York Times ‘100 Notable Books of 2023’, TIME Magazine ‘100 Must-Read Books of 2023′, Washington Post ’50 Notable Works of Nonfiction’, and Autostraddle ‘Best Queer Books of 2023’.

Audio Summary

Synopsis

Look, I’ve read my share of celebrity memoirs. Most are ghostwritten PR exercises dressed up as vulnerability. Pageboy isn’t that. Elliot Page wrote this thing like he was bleeding onto the page-childhood dysphoria, Hollywood’s suffocating expectations, relationships kept in shadows, and the long road to finally saying ‘I’m a man’ out loud. It jumps around in time, sometimes frustratingly so, but that fragmented structure? It mirrors how trauma actually works in your brain. This isn’t a neat before-and-after transition story. It’s messier than that. More honest than that.

Key Takeaways

• The Big Idea: Identity isn’t something you ‘figure out’ once-it’s a lifelong negotiation with yourself and a world that wants you to stay in your assigned box
• The Controversial Point: Page doesn’t spare Hollywood or the industry that profited from his discomfort, which will make some readers uncomfortable
• The Actionable Part: The book models radical self-honesty-even when it’s ugly, even when you don’t have answers yet
• The Hidden Gem: The sections about ‘private play’ in childhood-building forts, signing letters as ‘Jason’-are quietly devastating and often overlooked

My Summary

Not Your Typical Celebrity Tell-All

I picked up Pageboy expecting… I don’t know. Something shinier? Elliot Page is an Oscar-nominated actor. He’s been famous since he was a teenager. Celebrity memoirs usually come pre-packaged with redemption arcs and careful PR-approved revelations.

This ain’t that.

Page writes like someone who’s been holding their breath for thirty years and finally exhaled. And yeah-it’s messy. The timeline jumps around. You’re in his childhood bedroom one moment, then suddenly at a film premiere, then back to a memory of his stepmother’s cruelty. Some readers will find this disorienting. I kinda loved it. Because that’s how memory works, isn’t it? Especially traumatic memory. It doesn’t line up neatly. It ambushes you.

The Writing Itself-Let’s Talk Craft

Okay, so here’s where my former-novelist brain kicks in. Page isn’t a trained writer, and you can tell. Some sentences are clunky. There are moments where the prose gets a little therapy-speak-adjacent. But here’s the thing-the rawness works in the book’s favor. It doesn’t feel workshopped to death. It feels like someone actually wrote it, not a ghost.

(Yes, I’m aware I sound like a snob. I probably am. Moving on.)

The best passages are the childhood ones. That detail about signing love letters as ‘Jason’? About being forced off the coed football team and the switch happening ‘without warning’? Those hit different. Page has a real gift for capturing the specific texture of childhood shame-the way it burrows in and stays.

Where it drags: some of the Hollywood relationship stuff feels less vital. Not because it’s unimportant to Page’s story, but because the emotional stakes feel lower compared to the earlier material. I get why it’s there. I just found myself skimming at times.

What This Book Is Actually About

Sure, it’s about being trans. But reducing it to that misses the point. It’s about the violence of being seen wrong your entire life. It’s about dysphoria as a slow drowning. It’s about the weird cage of celebrity-being watched constantly while feeling utterly invisible.

Page doesn’t offer easy answers. He doesn’t wrap things up with a bow. The book ends with him still figuring stuff out, still in process. And honestly? That’s braver than a neat resolution would’ve been.

Real-World Applications (Or: Why Should You Care?)

If you’re trans or questioning, this book might feel like a lifeline. Seeing your specific flavor of confusion and pain reflected back by someone famous enough to get a book deal-that matters.

If you’re cis and genuinely want to understand what dysphoria actually feels like from the inside, this is one of the better primers out there. Not clinical. Not academic. Just-here’s what it was like in my body.

If you’re looking for gossip about Page’s famous relationships… I mean, there’s some of that. But it’s not the point.

The Verdict

Pageboy isn’t a perfect book. The structure can frustrate. Some sections feel underdeveloped while others overstay their welcome. But it’s a real book. A book that took something out of its author to write. In an era of polished, ghostwritten celebrity content, that counts for a lot.

I finished it in two sittings-not because it was a breezy read, but because I couldn’t look away. Page earned my attention the hard way.