Having a passing familiarity with this case, it is horrible to read David's monologue of contentment with his life as it was at the time of publication (2000)

knowing that he killed himself just a few years later.

Though Colapinto tries to hold onto the idea that this book is unbiased, it is very clear to me that Dr. John Money was the bad guy in this story. It is, after all, David's story and Money was the specter of all the terrible things that shaped his childhood. The descriptions of David's visits are frankly sickening to read. He and his twin brother endure very explicit questions about their bodies, their awareness of other people's sexual behaviors and forced (at least once) to simulate copulation with one another.

Money did a lot of good as a sexual scientist to bring awareness to the general public about several fetishes being normal, but his attitude towards child sexual "exploration" is strange and neurotic. His belief that sexual rehearsal play was something that allowed all children to grow up "entirely free of any psychosexual gender confusions or dysfunction" is without foundation - he bases it on a two week study of the Yolgnu, an aboriginal tribe in Northern Australia. This is refuted heavily by a colleague who has studied this particular tribe for several decades, having never seen any sexual rehearsal play and treated many of them for sexual neuroses (in whatever forms they may have been).

One of the worst things to read over and over was that so many other professionals involved in the family's therapy and care kept trying to convince David of things he knew not to be true; mainly that he needed vaginoplasty to be complete. The only thing this professional conviction was based on was Dr. Money's say-so. The evidence of the case's failure was in front of them in the surly "tomboy" who defied all their attempts to "help".

Everything is Billy and Teddy and grandpa!Isaiah feels and Kate being a badass and nothing hurts. Except when they get involved in Civil War but yaaaaay not in this book!

Logan would like the delinquent of the bunch.

Probably my least favorite read in 2013. I did not connect with any of the characters.

I'm not going to lie, once Alec and Seregil were kidnapped by slavers, I rushed through the pages hoping to get to the part where they were reunited. I was anxious to see if Alec would escape first to look for Seregil, without knowing that he was leaving him behind and also if he would fall prey to Khenir/Ilar's seduction techniques (being a eunuch, I'm not sure how much he could do, though). I hated his scenes; no matter that Seregil's feelings of anger turned to pity for him, I could not do the same. I wanted him to just go away forever.

I missed Thero and Beka in this novel. I wish that they had been given more than just bare bones (especially concerning Thero's feelings for Klia! What a turn of events.)

I thought this captured each character's voice fairly accurately, though I could have done without the Batman-as-Peeping-Tom during a Diana bathing scene. No need for her to be naked at all - that scene and what Paradise means to Bruce could have been approached in different and less offensive way.

You have Superman in a nutshell:



Batman being Batman:



And Diana, having just left Themyscira, learning the ways of man while still being true to her own values: