Review: Hell in Boots: Clawing My Way Through Nine Lives

By Justin D Williams

Saraya-Jade Bevis, popularly known by her stage name Paige, rips down the curtain in Hell in Boots, her gritty, emotionally raw autobiography. It is more than just a string of victories and defeats in the squared circle; it is a survival story—raw, agonizing, and inescapably human.

Bevis faces her own history head-on from the beginning. She doesn't dance around the secrets: child violence, drug issues, fights with mental illness, and public embarrassment that came after intimate material was released without permission. All those things aren't shared for shock value; they're shared for a reason—because she wants to take back her voice, to get well, and to let others know that they are not alone.

What differentiates Hell in Boots from other wrestling memoirs is that it steers clear of romanticism. Bevis draws readers into the spine-tingling highs of fame and the devastating lows of personal wretchedness without sugarcoating a moment of it. In voice, she is frank and gossipy, frequently laced with gallows humor, attitude, and moments of vulnerability—gubbings that made her a pioneering wrestler and now a compelling writer.

While the book doesn't linger on the in-ring material that perhaps fans might want to learn about, it does offer scorching insight into being a woman wrestler in pro wrestling's frequently-toxic culture. WWE and AEW stories are shared more as backstory to her psychological and emotional development than as behind-the-scenes news.

Where the book really excels is in emotional resonance. Bevis's toughness isn't romanticized with cliché—she's battle-worn, bloodied, and bruised. She takes her pain and her error personally, but she never lets them define her. Hell in Boots is really a book about resisting identity from a world that frequently attempted to script her.

Final Verdict:

This is not your book if you require a tell-all wrestling book of scandals. However, if you require a brutally honest account of one woman battling back for her strength in the face of adversity, then this is a book you should read. Saraya-Jade Bevis proves that survival is an art form, and she's painted her canvas in blood, sweat, and hard-hitting truth.

Rating: READ IT