I enjoyed it but it took a while for me to get through, what with school and being tired. It was a very effective and beautifully written look into gender dysphoria, and Joy's descriptions of her belief in God actually helped me see into that world as well.

Two disclaimers:
1. This book includes a suicide attempt, as well as transphobic and homophobic bullying and emotional and physical abuse.
2. The author has been accused of rape and abuse by her ex-wife, and due to the circumstances and what I was able to find about it I'm not sure what to believe. I didn't see anything about this until I was almost done with the book, and am writing this review without consideration of said allegations.

What a beautiful, heartbreaking book. Books like this can and will change the world, but this is more than an Important book, it's a good book. The two perspectives were written well, and themes that came up throughout the years tied everything together so naturally. I thought the book would feel choppy because of the time jumps but it didn't, there was just enough catch-up done so that it felt smooth, even as characters had time to change and progress and grow (or not, as in Eric's dad's case).

“Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.”

This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of the fa****s and their friends between revolutions, it’s just a gorgeous and real imagining of the world

I honestly think I need to reread this, not in audiobook form because I didn't always fully understand what was happening but that might be by design, especially from my white perspective. The language was beautiful and evocative and brought me in, and reminded me of the "____ gothic" posts I saw on tumblr years ago but better and serious