I Wrote This for Attention

White Lotus actor Gage debuts with a charming, puckish autobiography. As the title implies, Gage shapes the account around his lifelong hunger for attention, which began during his Southern California childhood, when his loving mother was distracted by his older brother’s drug addiction and his father remained emotionally elusive. Gage’s grandmother recognized his desire to be seen and enrolled him in a summer acting program, where he “discovered a freedom I had never known before.” From there, the narrative becomes a whirlwind of failed auditions, intense romances, and mental health struggles as Gage frankly recounts reckoning with his sexuality and a borderline personality disorder diagnosis as he entered adulthood. On occasion, the prose slips from winningly unvarnished to undercooked (“Walking outside, it felt as if I’d been bitch-slapped by the sun”), and readers might wish Gage’s unwavering candor would waver a bit when, for example, he describes the symptoms of a gnarly STI. For the most part, however, it’s exhilarating to watch Gage track his sometimes-harrowing inner turmoil alongside his rise through the Hollywood ranks on shows like Euphoria and You. This wild coming-of-age tale has a wicked sense of humor and a tender heart. Agent: Hailey Heidemann, WME. (Oct.)