The Last Days of August by Jon Ronson

The Last Days of August by Jon Ronson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is the behind the scenes events of the untimely death of porn star August Ames who committed suicide after a social media pile on by others after refusing to work with a male performer who had only done work with other males so she was perceived as homophobic.

Ronson then goes on a journey uncovering the stories of August's personal life and those connected with her. Some moments, even up to end, it seemed difficult to gleam exactly what the author was looking for. To add to it this style of audio-book was more or less a series on interviews with those involved between the author's narration and thoughts of his own. This made it seem like more like a podcast than a book.

The series of interviews and events opens a window into the world of porn. To some degree it confirms the perception of this industry that many of the performers and those behind the scenes are imperfect and many times have a lot of emotional baggage they bring a long.

Even at the end it was hard to define exactly what this it at story was about. It wasn't a true story nor one exclusively about social media bullying, though that did occur it wasn't the only factor. The best I could summarize was that it was tragic story of a trouble young woman, who worked in an career field that seemed ill equipped to help her because many of those around her were also fighting their own battles.

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