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aimiller's Reviews (689)
This book was a nice solid read about girl friendship that really made my heart pretty warm.
Spoilers about why I read it (queer read) though, which is important for folks who are more invested than I was, and some commentary surrounding that:Bo and Agnes DO NOT date even though it reads as like really homoerotic and with a lot of sexual tension; there's even a line where Agnes sort of thinks about Bo being bi and is like 'it wasn't something I had considered' and I was like OH MY GOD but no, alas, no dating, and while Agnes gets a sex scene with a male character, Bo's 'dating' is left to a single chapter at the end. She IS named as bisexual, though, and she does end up with a girlfriend so? idk, just something to think about. We can't do all things in all stories and I get that but MAN are we missing a 'sweet girl and a girl from the wrong side of the tracks fall in love' lesbian story.
I will also say that the ending felt pretty rushed, especially the final few chapters--like we bumped up against a space limitation and had to wrap up the story quickly. But it was a cute and fluffy story about girls growing up and learning how to be themselves and that was nice, so if you're looking for a quick feel-good read, this is a pretty good start!
Spoilers about why I read it (queer read) though, which is important for folks who are more invested than I was, and some commentary surrounding that:
I will also say that the ending felt pretty rushed, especially the final few chapters--like we bumped up against a space limitation and had to wrap up the story quickly. But it was a cute and fluffy story about girls growing up and learning how to be themselves and that was nice, so if you're looking for a quick feel-good read, this is a pretty good start!
It's a beautiful read; I will need time to parse it more fully, and really sit with it, but the characters were so rich and the story was so interwoven and just intensely crafted? I would love to see it performed, because I think the nuances and tensions would come across way more, but it's still an incredible piece of art to just read and I strongly encourage you to read it.
An amazing articulation of a life, that balances personal details and broader statistics to give both an in-depth and a sweeping view of the lives of transgender people. Janet Mock is essentially a prophet, and every single person I know and love needs to read this.
Definitely thought-provoking, though some of the connections between chapters felt a little disparate? I really enjoyed chapter five, especially the thoughts related to slow death, but was less interested in other things? This just wasn't my greatest cup of tea, which is more about my feelings and less about the book itself. I liked it, I just wasn't thrilled and rarely felt like blown away. A good read nonetheless, and I recommend it to folks who want to engage with affect theory and see how it works/what it might be able to do for them.
I need to establish some things off the bat in reviewing this book: 1) I received it through the Early Reviewers program at LibraryThing, and am grateful to Beacon Press for the free copy of the book; 2) I'm a cafab non-binary person who, like Donald, came out while at boarding school in 2011, which means I am going to go into this book with certain feelings.
All of this being said: this book was a difficult read for me, especially the essays written by Mary, and much of my difficulty is informed by my own experience socially transitioning at a young age. At one point I wrote that her struggles with Donald's transitions seemed to have little to do with his trans identity, and much, much more with the idea that he was no longer under her control at 16 (or subsequently at 18) and could do with his body what he wanted. She kept referring to him making these choices, especially medical choices, without her consent, despite the fact that he did not pursue medical transition before the age of 18; her claims that therapists and doctors interfered with her parenting seemed to completely ignore the fact that at the time he made these decisions, he was a legal adult, and he did not go through that process without any gatekeeping, as his chapters make explicitly clear.
In all of this, Donald comes out looking comparatively level-headed and remarkably reflective; he is able to acknowledge the pain his mother went through throughout her transition, including the ways he hurt her, while also holding the same space for his own pain--to put it neatly, he has created the "middle ground" she demands be opened, while her essays leave her claiming "discrimination" from people who were more supportive of her son than she was. I want to be clear that I don't think she doesn't have important things to say, but it is incredibly telling to me that it is Donald who makes the all-too-telling assessment that his mother experienced "the bigger, more abstract fear that [he] needed something she couldn't give and that [he] would seek it out wherever [he] could find it, whether she was included or not." He follows this observation with an incredible insight: "I have to admit, she was right."
And that to me is where the miss in this book came; Mary's rigid insistence that she had been slighted, or abandoned, or kept out of the process of Donald's transition seems to block her from articulating what to me is a huge piece of misunderstanding between trans children and their cis parents, and between children and parents more generally: parents cannot always provide everything for their children that their children need. (It seems important to note that I came to this book less than a week after I finished Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother?, which I would call a readalike with this book.) Donald seems in what I would call his best essay ("Hidden Fees") to understand and even almost articulate that point, while Mary is too caught up trying to explain the why behind her actions and feelings without really digging into the why within herself.
What bumped this book up from two stars to three for me (beyond Donald's last essay, which I am very impressed with) were two things, the first being the section at the back, especially the interviews with trans people, which were delightful as a trans person because it is so rare to see communication between community members in print, but also because it gives a wider variety of narratives for parents who did struggle with their feelings about their children's identities. Being able to step outside Mary's seeming lake of self-pity helped generate a broader sympathy for the parents of trans children (though I should note that trans children and adults are often discouraged, and in some cases are legally prohibited, from being their true authentic selves for the sake of their parents, a thought which never seems to cross any of the parents' minds.) The second thing was how much this made me reflect on my own relationship with my parents, as a trans child who came out at the same time as Donald (literally down to the year- it's almost spooky!) I will be handing off my copy to my mother and then hopefully give it to my father, in the hopes of generating a conversation that we never had about their feelings about my transition (were they more inclined to accept me because I told them a year before I came out socially and changed my name? because I was quick to reassure them that medical transition, if an option at all for me, was not in my immediate future? because they understood or knew their understanding didn't really matter?) That is definitely in-line with the series theme, and so I do think it was worth it from that perspective.
All of this being said: this book was a difficult read for me, especially the essays written by Mary, and much of my difficulty is informed by my own experience socially transitioning at a young age. At one point I wrote that her struggles with Donald's transitions seemed to have little to do with his trans identity, and much, much more with the idea that he was no longer under her control at 16 (or subsequently at 18) and could do with his body what he wanted. She kept referring to him making these choices, especially medical choices, without her consent, despite the fact that he did not pursue medical transition before the age of 18; her claims that therapists and doctors interfered with her parenting seemed to completely ignore the fact that at the time he made these decisions, he was a legal adult, and he did not go through that process without any gatekeeping, as his chapters make explicitly clear.
In all of this, Donald comes out looking comparatively level-headed and remarkably reflective; he is able to acknowledge the pain his mother went through throughout her transition, including the ways he hurt her, while also holding the same space for his own pain--to put it neatly, he has created the "middle ground" she demands be opened, while her essays leave her claiming "discrimination" from people who were more supportive of her son than she was. I want to be clear that I don't think she doesn't have important things to say, but it is incredibly telling to me that it is Donald who makes the all-too-telling assessment that his mother experienced "the bigger, more abstract fear that [he] needed something she couldn't give and that [he] would seek it out wherever [he] could find it, whether she was included or not." He follows this observation with an incredible insight: "I have to admit, she was right."
And that to me is where the miss in this book came; Mary's rigid insistence that she had been slighted, or abandoned, or kept out of the process of Donald's transition seems to block her from articulating what to me is a huge piece of misunderstanding between trans children and their cis parents, and between children and parents more generally: parents cannot always provide everything for their children that their children need. (It seems important to note that I came to this book less than a week after I finished Alison Bechdel's Are You My Mother?, which I would call a readalike with this book.) Donald seems in what I would call his best essay ("Hidden Fees") to understand and even almost articulate that point, while Mary is too caught up trying to explain the why behind her actions and feelings without really digging into the why within herself.
What bumped this book up from two stars to three for me (beyond Donald's last essay, which I am very impressed with) were two things, the first being the section at the back, especially the interviews with trans people, which were delightful as a trans person because it is so rare to see communication between community members in print, but also because it gives a wider variety of narratives for parents who did struggle with their feelings about their children's identities. Being able to step outside Mary's seeming lake of self-pity helped generate a broader sympathy for the parents of trans children (though I should note that trans children and adults are often discouraged, and in some cases are legally prohibited, from being their true authentic selves for the sake of their parents, a thought which never seems to cross any of the parents' minds.) The second thing was how much this made me reflect on my own relationship with my parents, as a trans child who came out at the same time as Donald (literally down to the year- it's almost spooky!) I will be handing off my copy to my mother and then hopefully give it to my father, in the hopes of generating a conversation that we never had about their feelings about my transition (were they more inclined to accept me because I told them a year before I came out socially and changed my name? because I was quick to reassure them that medical transition, if an option at all for me, was not in my immediate future? because they understood or knew their understanding didn't really matter?) That is definitely in-line with the series theme, and so I do think it was worth it from that perspective.
I have no doubt at all that I am Too Dumb for this book, nor did I go back and check/compare all the notes or anything. But I really liked this--it was fun to relish in the form of it, and it was very funny in the way Nabokov usually is. And as the story winds up, it really does suck you in and the narrative is so interesting and tight and self-involved and it's just a really good fun book that I would (and probably have to!) definitely return to for a number of rereads.
I would say this is definitely still pretty fun and interesting. My reading this time was super disjointed (there's a gap because it was a library book) but it was still super fun to read, still very engaging, and a quick read that sucks you right in. The world is really great and I really want to read more of it!
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This book was a really delightful fantasy romp; it had just enough fantasy language (or, y'know, Welsh,) to make it seem unfamiliar without being wholly alienating (though it was a little rough to get into at the beginning, but that's something I experience a lot so ymmv.) I found the characters to be fun, especially Eilonwy and Fflewddur Fflam, and Taran's growth was good to watch. It made me want to read the other books in the series!
(People have said this is just watered down LOTR for kids and yeah to a large extent that might be true but also it's more fun and significantly shorter than LOTR so there.)
(People have said this is just watered down LOTR for kids and yeah to a large extent that might be true but also it's more fun and significantly shorter than LOTR so there.)
I really had no idea what to expect going into this and WOW it really blew my socks off! The world was so rich and yet so, so grounded; the characters all were so complex and sympathetic and yet frustrating as well. I loved that things had consequences in this book, and was left wanting a lot more of this world- I was surprised there hasn't been a sequel because it really felt like there was going ot be, but I also recognize the power in having this be a standalone and encouraging the reader to do imagining of a future on their own.
Okay I will say: having the 'Villain' (insofar as you can point to one characters as one in this book) be Fat, even with the explanation as to why, was a little gross honestly? Like we don't need to use fatphobia to reinforce how bad this guy was. There are other avenues. That and a throwaway line about Native people which wasn't BAD but could definitely be read as reinforcing some stereotypes about alcohol are my two biggest issues with the book, which speaks volumes as to how good the book is!