sicksadlit's Reviews (527)

"It was too much to play a role on-screen when the role I played in my personal life was suffocating me already."

Pageboy by Elliot Page sheds light on the cruel, messy, and often torturous experience of growing up transgender in the Hollywood spotlight.

As a life-long fan of Elliot's acting work, and as a fellow queer, I was excited to read this as part of a queer book club. 

I devoured the pages, feeling mostly extraordinarily uncomfortable by the pain and shockingly relatable emotional abuse that Elliot endured as a child from those meant to love and support him, finding few moments of joy and laughter as I annotated my copy of the book.

Rating this book is tricky, as on one hand, I deeply related to, and understood much of Page's pain. But on the other, found, at many times, the prose to be overly self-indulgent and often lit with cliches. As with many of the other reviews, I agree that the writing could have been tightened up. Elliot's search for catharsis through the writing of this work bleeds through the page and whilst I applaud his openness and vulnerability from a lifetime of keeping his true thoughts and feelings bottled up inside, it has a tendency to read like a diary entry.

The timeline jumps back and forth without a common thread or obvious purpose, and in my view the book is best read as a collection of personal essays rather than a linear memoir. 

THAT BEING SAID! I genuinely enjoyed this book and felt deeply moved by it. The anecdotes on the different healthy relationships Elliot has made throughout his life were beautiful and inspiring, and I enjoyed chuckling along with certain queer tendencies that exist no matter your gender (immediately falling in love. amirite.)

Honestly, go off Elliot. You deserve to have your voice heard, multiple references to shitting and all. Love you xoxoxo

The Crewe Murders: Inside New Zealand's most infamous cold case offers an updated take on a thoroughly well covered crime case from the 1970s. 

Jeannette and Harvey Crewe were shot dead in their home in June 1970, their bodies disposed of in the Waikato river where they were located several weeks later. Their daughter Rochelle survived, just 18-months old at the time, prompting debate over whether or not the killer, or killers, returned to the scene of the crime across the five day period to feed and hydrate the child.

Overall, this book provides a good general overview of the matters at the heart of the crime. It's unfortunate that the police mishandling of the investigation and their subsequent framing of Arthur Allen Thomas distracted investigators from the true issue at hand - solving a brutal double homicide.

And although this case has been well covered as the subject of many books throughout the years, I found this latest adaptation to be quite light-touch, skimming through the more than 50 years long mystery without adding anything new or of meaningful substance. 

While it's true that there is a chapter towards the end dedicated to "new" information, this would have been sufficient as a news article (as it was also published), rather than deserving an entire book just for this big reveal.

There were no new conclusion or insights drawn at the end, no big lightbulb moment, which begs the question - why did this book need to be written?

For those unfamiliar with the crime, this book would be a useful overview of the key facts. But as a true crime enthusiast with fairly good existing knowledge of the story, I was left wanting with this one.

This book was so infuriating, I loved it. 

God Andy was annoying. Annoying because everything about his insufferable, whiny, self-pitying character is so FAMILIAR. 

We all know/have dated an Andy.

And Jen’s act of radical self-love to prioritise her own wants and needs above that of Andy’s, served as an intoxicating reminder that we all have permission to choose our own path. Her chapter at the end read like my own innermost thoughts at times from relationships past where I was searching for a way out.

Dolly masterfully captured the reality of dating and relationships in your 30s with complex and interesting characters that felt entirely believable and relatable.

P.S. petition for a Jen spin off!!!