We all know who Megan Fox is: seemingly one of the hottest women in this era, and one of the male species’ favorite celebrity crushes. After Megan’s Transformers era, she seemed to disappear for a while, with the world mostly knowing and identifying her with her fiancé, Machine Gun Kelly. Her most notable and famous looks have been on the arm of musician MGK, with the couple gaining fame for their odd romance. Recently, Megan Fox has released her own poetry book, titled Pretty Boys are Poisonous. To fully understand the concept of this book, I decided to refresh and acquaint myself with Megan as a human being, something I’m sure most of the world has forgotten to do in the wake of MGK. After reading the book, here are my thoughts on Fox’s literary debut.
At first glance
The book is currently in hardcover form at Barnes and Noble, Amazon, or available through ebook download. As expected, the book has a very pretty cover, in typical Megan Fox fashion, complete with a red background, black ink, a snake, and black lips split with a lip ring. It seems that Megan Fox is tired of hiding, with the back of the book reading;
“These poems were written in an attempt to excise the illness that had taken root in me because of my silence. I’ve spent my entire life keeping the secrets of men… My freedom lives in these pages…”
The forward follows suit, highlighting the fact that Fox has not expressed her feelings in fear of the men in her life. She describes herself as a “sacrificial lamb” for the “idiot” who hunts her. She says that she has kept her self-expression hidden in the past, but she has since been broken and now pours out all her feelings and experiences. She signs the forward, “… This book is also for me. Because f*ck. I deserve better.”
Tired of being an “accessory”
After reading each and every page, I have to say that Fox surprised me. Like so many girls out there (rather unfortunately), I found myself relating to her brutally honest themes of being used by men. Paired with beautiful images, Fox regularly addressed the standards for women in society, and how she became lost in its grotesque depths.
Favorites of mine include “the art of becoming an accessory,” which discusses the feeling of simply being an accessory in public, not safe to share, smile, or laugh without the approval of the man behind you. In this poem, Fox shares how she forgot her voice and became accustomed to dressing in short skirts and high heels simply to please the man who desired to show his arm candy off.
“I didn’t sign up to compete in your bullsh*t beauty pageant” is short, but sweetened in similar themes. It discusses the idea that men don’t care about the words you speak, but rather “the shape of my mouth.”
In my personal life, I’ve seemed to experience these themes increasingly as I’ve gotten older. Perhaps it doesn’t happen to every girl out there, but I do recognize the truth in Fox’s words, and honestly, it’s about time more of us started talking about it.
Dark themes of abuse
The book further moves on to bleak, darker themes, with which many observations can be made. Fox writes of a man hurting her, leaving bruises, scratch marks, and bite marks. Whether meant literally or not, Fox leaves quite the visual representation of her experiences. Throughout a multitude of pages, she writes with the theme of being abused while also sparing her abuser the feeling of guilt. She shares the excuses she likely made for said “idiot,” with passages such as “this isn’t your fault,” “no one taught you how to love,” and “you don’t know how to control all the passion you feel.”
Fox shares that she would put on sweatshirts to spare him from having to look at the damage he did. Throughout her experiences, she fully loved, which prevented her from clearly seeing the desolate side of things. She writes how, although this is happening behind closed doors, she parades around as his doll, with him flashing smiles and greeting crowds in “your couture suit.”
If you decide to purchase the book, look for Fox’s testimony of abuse on pages 3 with “f*cked up fairy tales,” 34 with “don’t worry darling,” 61 with “the devil wears dolce,” and 128 with “oxycodone and tequila.”
Is this about MGK?
The curious side of me wondered if I could figure out who Megan Fox was writing about and if it could potentially be one of her famous partners. The world didn’t see or hear of Fox’s bizarre aptitude for twisted romance until she started dating superstar MGK. It can be observed that he brought this side out of her, with highlights including the ring the singer proposed to Fox with; featuring both Fox’s and MGK’s birthstones, the engagement ring was “designed to hurt” if Megan Fox ever took it off. MGK expressed that love is pain, and if Fox ever decided to take off her engagement ring, the spikes embedded within the band would cause pain. The couple also gained earlier attention as MGK was spotted wearing a capsule of Megan’s blood around his neck.
These practices are more than unusual, and if you ask me, tie into the toxicity that Fox wrote about in her book.
Specific hints?
Look for the poem on page 29, titled “snow white and the complacent rock star,” or “the devil wears dolce” on page 61, which again, specifically addresses her muse as “the reckless rock star.” More evidence? Page 131 features “prove it, orpheus,” which begs her muse, “don’t write it in a song.”
I observed multiple accounts of Fox referring to her literary devil as a “rockstar,” with many of the accompanying illustrations portraying a skinny man with blond hair, resembling MGK.
In the end, the book sheds light on Fox’s personal life and well-being, which I think is something the world has loved to ignore. It’s easy to indulge in Fox and MGK’s latest gossip, as most of it is rather unorthodox. After reading Pretty Boys Are Poisonous, I can say that Megan Fox has experienced feelings of being addicted to love so strongly that she overlooked potential mental and physical abuse. She shares the excuses she made for her love interest and the journey to finding her voice. Megan Fox has declared that she is sick of being an “accessory,” and honestly, I am too. As written on the back of the book, Megan Fox urges readers to “take back their happiness and identity by using their voice,” just as she finds her “freedom” throughout this book.