I thought it would be interesting to read "the life of a porn star" but this was awfully written and incoherent.
Shaw is vapid and boring at least in his book, Despite his other "life", Aiden Shaw's autobio was a complete pleasure to read, This book wasn't like other autobios where there are separate pinpointed moments in one chapter and
a different one in the next.
. . this book read like it was a true novel, There was a flow to it like you the reader were actually there standing there and witnessing every moment that had happened.
All of the moments becomes like one entire moment and you are not able to put the book down,
Aiden portrays exactly what he went through at that particular time of his life, It's not pretty, but it's honest, The title already gives you an idea of what Aiden went through and how he had became a survivor in the end of that chapter of his life.
Now some people may not "approve" of what he has done and should have made better choices, In my opinion, I went in it knowing where I have seen him, but without judgement, It was more curiosity that developed into become a new favourite author, Pretentious, superficial, boring I picked this up because I was interested to read about a gay porn star's life, their interests in the medium and their experience of love.
I had seen Shaw on Tumblr as a model and was surprised to learn he did gay porn, When I discovered he had written two biographies I was eager to know more about his life, Call me a sucker for curiosity but I've always been attracted to the darker seedier side of life without actually wanting to take part in any of it.
I also wanted to know if porn life was interesting or just as unglamorous as I suspected, And to some degree, it seems like it is,
The problem that I found with this book is that there is very little introspection and when there is, it is fleeting.
The commentary is completely one dimensional that when Shaw does begin to dive deeper, he ponders for a sentence and then moves on.
It's a shame really, because I was hoping he would be more open and vulnerable to exploring the fears and addictions in his life.
I can see the hypersensitivity in his manner especially in how he reacts and deals with stuff, but alas, most of his book was very pedestrian.
Yes, it is selfabsorbing material but it was his life and it is, in effect, a biography, But I will be honest and say that I walked away from this book liking him less than when I started,
Should have known this would be a train wreck, and not in a good way, a narcissistic exploration in vapidity,
For the first time, porn legend Aiden Shaw takes fans behindthescenes to the gay adult film world that made him a star.
My Undoing ventures from locales such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and London, to the sets of premiere studios like Falcon, Catalina, and Studio.
Yet, this is not the typical adult film memoir, where drop names and titillate readers with explicit moments, Although My Undoing shares in unsparing detail all the hot stories about the sex and drugs that fueled Aiden's life, it more profoundly follows him through a course of rocky and unfulfilling relationships.
As Aiden eloquently and often humorously points out, the romantic life of an adult film superstar is sometimes lonely and lacking in love.
But not love only in the form of a relationship, rather also love from within himself, The book is equally moving for his revelations about his Irish Catholic family, his Positive HIV status in the sex industry, and his recovery from a near fatal car accident that left him temporarily paralyzed.
I guess after so many chapters it just got too numbing to see how much drugs and sex one person can really have over the course of a year while also reading everyone else is doing it to and in the end he still doesn't understand the messed up decision he returns to.
Meh! I might have believed it more if it were fiction, I had to stop reading it, I am sure it was better then it was but I could not get thru all the drugs, Too close to home. I enjoyed Shaw's book because it resonates on every single page, After aboutpages I got a kick out of his complete and profound narcisissm because I have yet to meet a porn star who ISN'T totally selfabsorbed.
But the truth of sex, love and gay men is apparent on every page,
I wish all authors of M/M would read this author's books, He runs the gamut from great reviews to poor, I would have given him a five except at the end, I am not in love with him, . . he is hard to like but equally, hard to ignore, I gave this book two because the writing isn't all that great, though it is better than you would expect considering.
The content, however, is interesting, It is shocking, sad and a bit surreal, It's the stuff of a movie, but it is real, Shaw gives the reader a glimpse into his life as a gay porn star, a life packed with lots of sex and lots of drugs.
Sometimes it was a little difficult for me to believe that I was reading a true account of someone's life, This definitely isn't the highest quality read ever but it is surely a detour from the conventional, An uninteresting, poorly constructed glorifcation of a life that shouldn't be glorified at all, Nothing but blatant namedropping, casual sex, and rampant drug consumption without any self, social or moral exploration, I don't decry the life of a porn star, of a sexual deviant, of a drug addict I love porn, sex and drugs but there's nothing here but a rambling timeline.
The narrative was nonexistant, the growth was minimal, and the overall impact was nil,
To take it a step further, Shaw takes no steps to point out how unsafe some of his activies are.
I realize that no one is required to be a "representative" or "role model" for the youth of the world, but I also think Shaw comes across wildly irresponsible in many ways.
The closest he comes to having any kind of mention of the risks he takes is one of his closest fuck buddies always wanting to get fucked without a condom, despite Shaw and him both being well aware of Shaw's HIV positive status.
On top of that, Shaw's relationships the supposed core of the book come across immature, both in presentation and his life.
He goes through "boyfriends," as well as concepts of what "love" means to him, faster than he does drugs, but not once is there an adequate explanation of their worth to him, their relationship outside of sex, prostitution and porn, or really their relationships at all.
The most believable and fullyformed relationships are with his female friends who he still fucks around with and his crazy stalker later in the novel.
Honestly, this entire "memoir" boils down to "we did some combination of ecstasy, crystal meth, GHB, cocaine, crack and alcohol, fucked twotofive guys for twotofive days, filmed a movie maybe, and then I pined for someone who may or may not have agreed to engage in a monogamous relationship with me.
".