Reviews

i found this book extremely touching. it's rare to find such a testimony from a family member of a person who has transitioned, and i found this perspective very interesting. i appreciated the author's honesty: she doesn't pretend to have done everything right. she opens up about her failures, her regrets, the things she should have done differently. i think this book could potentially help parents, grandparents, or just relatives who don't know how to deal with this change.
some of the writing choices bothered me a little though: the use of her child's deadname (perhaps to better illustrate her points?), and the writing of certain passages that i found a little confusing.

thank you to netgalley for providing me with an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

szucker6's review against another edition

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4.0

This was an interesting and challenging read. It was hard and painful to read Anne’s perspective as she was refusing to see Alex for who he was and instead was seeking ways to affirm her own worldview. Once she started to step up and towards her son, it was like releasing a held breath. Given that Anne is a biologist, I felt like there was so much more opportunity to explore the diversity of sex and gender in nature and was surprised that only a few pages were dedicated to this.

I appreciated the sort of “mixed media” approach in this graphic novel, including illustrated depictions of documentaries, and emails from Anne’s son (that I found particularly impactful given that this story is told from Anne’s perspective, it gave direct insight into her child’s feelings). The choice of when to use color was inventive and engaging.

While this won’t be a problem when the book goes to print, it was frustrating that the ARC had a giant watermark in the center of every page—it makes it much, much harder to read a graphic novel.

Disclaimer: I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

lauryngreen's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful fast-paced

3.0

emathecrow's review against another edition

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3.0

Parfait pour offrir à des parents d’enfants trans ou des personnes qui ne connaissent rien en notion de genres

zana_reads_arcs's review against another edition

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5.0

This was such a beautiful fictionalized graphic memoir!

I loved how this portrayed a mother's journey into understanding her trans son. Maybe it helped that the mother, Anne, is a biologist and was open-minded when it came to changing her views on sex and gender (and sex vs. gender).

I also loved how both Anne (and the immediate family to a greater degree) and her trans son, Alex, were open to understanding each other's experiences. It was definitely understandable that Anne was in a state of confusion and denial in the beginning, making Alex angry towards his mother. That entire situation felt extremely realistic.

And the ending, after both sides made a conscious effort to still keep in touch, it was great to see Anne actually taking suggestions from her son when he emails her resources on the trans community, while also finding resources on her own.

Maybe it's because this topic is personal to me (so I'm biased), but this graphic novel shows one of the better outcomes for when a child comes out as trans.

Thank you to Top Shelf Productions and NetGalley for this arc.

arnoldad1's review against another edition

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challenging emotional informative reflective tense medium-paced

4.5

courtreadsney's review against another edition

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emotional hopeful informative reflective fast-paced

4.5

Special note of acknowledgement to the translator, Evan McGorray, a trans non-binary person that translated this graphic novel that was first published in French to English. Without them it wouldn't be possible for more people to read this story.

This graphic novel gave me such conflicted feelings as I'm sure it will many within the queer community. I often found myself so very frustrated with the mother for not having immediate acceptance and understanding. For causing her son pain for just existing as he feels is right for him. Yet I also think it shows a very real and honest journey of a mother and both her battle with her internal bias and bigotry and the love for her child. I personally love that this work was done in collaboration with not only the mom but with her son who transitioned, "Alex" in the graphic novel.

I think the illustration style does a great job of being simplistic yet expressive in telling this mother's story. I think this story also does a great job of highlighting queer and more specifically trans history from around the world so as to inform throughout this story. This is a journey for the mother as well as for the reader. I also love how it showed that this concept is not something so confusing and scary for kids to understand. Adults push their own feelings of uncomfortability and assume their children, because younger, must be that much more confused. However in reality without preconceived biases these realities are much easier for children to accept as just another way of existing. It really shows the societal influence of gender and for people to conform to the gender binary versus some "natural" thing we know.

I also loved the ending message this story isn't really over. Deconstruction is never finished and we must continue to improve ourselves and learn. Also pointing to so many resources and additional works for learning more about trans and non-binary people, gender identity, gender expression, etc. you can tell this list was not just an afterthought. It has podcasts to memoirs to graphic novels and makes me eager to read more of these stories.

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