Thanks to Atria Books for the free advance copy of this book.

Part memoir and part reimaginings of classic works, SOMETHING THAT MAY SHOCK AND DISCREDIT YOU is Daniel Lavery's exploration of his experience before, during, and after transitioning (note: the author has changed his name since I received this galley). The book ranges from straightforward (pardon the pun) pontificating on the mental stress of gender dysphoria to drawing on lessons from the Bible to imagining Sappho as a dirtbag teenager.

I've been following this author's writing for years and this, I think, is easily his best work yet. It's whip-smart and wildly funny, while also delving into deep, complex emotions. I think the most important thing about this book is all the digging into his mental state, particularly about the years he fought his desire to transition. As a culture, we by now have a pretty standard framework for what we understand the physical process of transitioning to be like for many binary trans people, but I can't think of any other work that looks so closely at the mental process. I imagine it will be a real gift for some readers to see themselves on the page here.

Many of the essays map a transmasculine experience onto the classics - Bible parables, Greek myths, The Golden Girls. Queer people search for themselves everywhere, in my experience. I also particularly appreciated the examination of not just the trauma a religious upbringing can inflict on a queer person, but also the comfort those stories can bring as well.

I did find by the second half of the book that things began to get repetitive, but each essay was still a delight, especially the ones that felt like classic-era Toast posts - I'll be laughing about the Lord Byron essay for months!