4.5 rounded up.

While I am on a trip to the US (soon to be concluded), I have still managed to find a book to read, even though my busy days prevented me from reading as regularly as I might have done at home. But I finally finished this, and here is the verdict!

There are many reasons to love Sir Patrick Stewart. This man alone unites fans of Star Trek, X-Men, and the plays written by Shakespeare. As a person, the man himself comes across as intelligent, gentle, and witty, perhaps wittier through the years as he has learned to loosen up; he is the first to admit that earlier in his career, he took things a bit too seriously, until his fellow cast members on Star Trek: The Next Generation taught him the gift of behind-the-scenes laughter.

Those who have followed his career for a while, already know these elements, but through this autobiography, it is made that much clearer what a journey this has been for him personally. Making It So humanizes him even more than before. In interviews, he comes across as a giant among giants; in his roles, he is stoic and majestic. Here, he talks about fears, awkwardness, blunders, what he considers grave personal failures – and a slew of crushes he's had on all sorts of girls while growing up.

It's a very candid memoir, and shows a delightful, at times highly vulnerable side of him. His writing comes across as humble, with himself not always being sure how he got lucky enough to experience some of the things he has accomplished both privately and professionally. Not only is he also willing to admit some regrets, but he also reflects on how they shaped his life and perhaps influenced him into not only becoming an actor, but to improve as a person.

Some early parts are especially saddening to read, such as the domestic abuse he witnessed growing up and was, on occasion, directly submitted to. Unfortunately, this is a familiar family dynamic to some of us, and it goes to show that even the greatest people can come from really rough backgrounds. It can be somewhat triggering, even with moments like his humiliation of being slapped in public striking a nerve, but it's still an important topic. His complicated relationship with his father must have been such a double-edged sword. Despite all the problematic aspects, Stewart managed to take away some good qualities from the way he grew up, such as a natural knack for leadership, something that undoubtedly led him to such roles as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

Speaking of which, if you want to read this book mainly as a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation, you might need a little patience, because Stewart does take his time in establishing his early life and the evolution of his career as a Shakespearean actor, spend well over half the book on that. I, too, got this book because I am a major Trekkie. But with that said, I feel like everything has been told at an appropriate pace. Obviously, this is his life, first of all, so you can't really rush the order of events. But to me, everything leading up to that point is narrated almost as a slow-burn build-up, as if to more effectively make it clear what a significant change in his life this marked once that era of his life finally began.

However, as if to compromise a little bit, when he is talking about other periods of his life, he will often compare it to something he learned during his TNG days. This also clearly shows how much this character/role meant to him after all. Plus, it's smart to sprinkle the first portion of this book with Trekreferences to keep that portion of his fans from getting too impatient along the way.

But as I said, in my opinion, this book is an interesting read overall. So many things had to go right for him to become the actor he is today, such as people believing in him when he was a mere student, how one plan falling through made room for another opportunity, and so on. Along the way, there are some charming, funny anecdotes, like the time he bought way too many potatoes, but also, that aforementioned candid approach also reveals some more serious moments, such as watching his hero, Ian Holm, fumble and fail, or Stewart's highly uncomfortable experience with filming David Lynch's Dune. Besides, it's interesting to read how enthusiastically he talks about his time with the RSC, fanboying over Shakespeare just like how we fans are super excited about the aforementioned franchises he has been part of. And some of his anecdotes cleverly come full circle in the sense that several actors that he met during his RSC days later on appeared on TNG.

When it comes to the portion of the book that directly deals with Star Trek, I guess as a full-on Trekkie, one can never get enough of reading about that. Which is why I am retrospectively unsure if there was enough coverage of this period to fully satisfy the eager Trekkie. I kind of wish he would go as much into detail with certain parts of that time as he did when talking about his time with the RSC. But that's a selfish wish, of course. This book isn't meant to be solely about Star Trek, it's his entire life, and some of the pivotal moments that helped shape him altogether; not all of them happened during the Trek era, and that's absolutely fair.

With that said, I will give his writing this credit: Even though we know the outcome of him being considered for a role in TNG, Stewart still manages to create some suspense by taking us through the audition process in detail, including the initial skepticism of Gene Roddenberry himself.

There is also the fact that he needs to make some room for his time with the X-Men, too, as I'm sure a lot of fans know him more as Charles Xavier than Jean-Luc Picard. It also made me smile to read about how his bromance with Sir Ian McKellen grew, and how he has finally found true love in his life. It pleased me to see how this book ends at a very recent part of his life; he finishes this memoir as the Patrick Stewart he is today. Older, wiser, less concerned, and able to enjoy life in a different way than in the beginning.

I loved it!