"As a trans person, and a public one, the sensation is that I'm always pleading for people to believe me".

Trigger warnings for this book: homophobia, sex, dysphoria, use of slurs, eating disorders, stalking, sexual harrassment, mention of drugs.

From an innocent question like "can I be a boy?" to dressing as a tomboy, and coming out in his mid twenties and thirties Elliot talks to us about the struggles of not only being trans, but also about mental health.

I've been wanting to read Pageboy since it came out and I am glad I read it at this exact moment that I'm feeling masculine.

Almost at the end, Elliot talks about how he experiences dysphoria, which hit too close to home. I experience dysphoria in the same way and I'm glad I can hear that from a real person be honest about it.

"Her happiness came at the cost of mine."

I've been meaning to read this since it came out, but I didn't have the mental strength needed for this reading. I had an emptiness inside me with every page I read.

The writing is simple and not in a i-will-talk-about-something-and-the-next-chapter-will-be-something-else-entirely way where there isn't a direction, where there is a lot of time jumping.

Instead, there's a story that takes us through Jennette's early memories since childhood and how her mom plays the protagonist in her life, instead of Jennette being the main character.

She doesn't hold back anything and trusts the reader by telling us the very toxic and dependent relationship she has with her mom even when she dies, her mom's ghost follows Jennette in the way she thinks about herself.

"If a villain can be made, then he can be unmade."