melissakuzma's review against another edition
3.0
I liked this book but found it a little uneven. There were times where I thought "why is she telling me this?" But it did make me laugh out loud a few times and I find her fascinating. Definitely going to read her first memoir!
trudilibrarian's review against another edition
3.0
I've been on a memoir kick lately and this one by Jennifer Boylan is quite enjoyable. Boylan's irreverent wit knows no boundaries, and her candid descriptions of what it was like to grow up as a boy wishing she was a girl revealed to me a heretofore unimagined life. Boylan's plight struck me as heartbreaking - yet her courage and perseverance are ultimately inspiring. What is this life but our search to uncover who we really are and who we really want to be? At its core, Boylan's memoir is an unconventional coming-of-age tale you won't soon forget.
I did not know quite how to assimilate Boylan's numerous encounters with spirits, mists, and otherworldly bumps in the night. In hindsight, even Boylan questions if she really experienced something supernatural, or if it was herself she was haunting all along:
I did not know quite how to assimilate Boylan's numerous encounters with spirits, mists, and otherworldly bumps in the night. In hindsight, even Boylan questions if she really experienced something supernatural, or if it was herself she was haunting all along:
Was it possible, I thought, as I looked at the woman in the mirror, that it was some future version of myself I'd seen here when I was a child? From the very beginning, had I only been haunting myself? (249)Whatever the case, whether you take the hauntings as literal or metaphorical, Boylan's honesty about her experiences gives the memoir a unique texture that left me questioning my own beliefs in the possibility of an afterlife.
lindapatin's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
funny
hopeful
inspiring
slow-paced
4.0
catladylover94's review against another edition
2.0
i thought this was really boring, had a few laughs, but it was long and drawn out, and poorly written, i was not impresses
atlantabelle's review against another edition
3.0
The parts about being trans are great. The haunted part? Meh. Not so much
mountainzombie's review against another edition
5.0
one of the most incredible memoirs I've ever read. the last five pages of this book are so strong, so vulnerable, so honest in their delivery and conception that it left me with shaking hands. I've read a lot of books on the trans experience and have also lived through my own life as a non-binary queer individual but Jennifer's approach of weaving the narrative of growing up as a child in a haunted home and as a trans person growing in a haunted body made me rethink so much. It takes a special person to write a book about their life that is both tragic and hilarious, inspired but grounded, and vulnerable without oversharing. As a child I loved ghost stories because I felt like a ghost in myself, and as an adult I felt touched to see that concept so beautiful poured out into something so good that I have been thinking about it for a week straight. I cannot recommend this enough.