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augustlight's review against another edition
5.0
I lost count of how many times had the thought SOMEONE LIKE ME, SOMEONE PUT IT INTO WORDS while reading this. The reading experience made my body dysphoria skyrocket and was akin to being kicked in the stomach repeatedly. I had to take like half a dozen breaks to get my feelings out in song form, and all the songs were godawful. Five stars.
wordnerdknitter's review
2.25
I suppose it's a mark of progress in some direction that there are now extremely mediocre trans memoirs written and published. This feels like a book that got published almost solely because the author has a famous sister and some connections - it begins to explore some interesting ideas, but falls prey to the all-too-common trap of writing about your own transition while extremely early in transitioning, and as if no one else has ever thought or experienced the things you're thinking and experiencing. There are other books doing the same work and doing it better.
heidisreads's review against another edition
Did not finish. YET. I was listening to the audiobook and having trouble connecting to the character and story. I am going to try reading it instead!
mitchosaur's review against another edition
5.0
This book was such an impactful read and I loved hearing about the authors experience coming into his identity. The entire book from start to finish had me thinking the entire time I was reading. I would highly recommend this book!
em_harring's review against another edition
I don't know how to rate this right now, so I'm not going to.
On one hand, the conversation around gender dysphoria and identity felt deeply relatable to me, and it was so wonderfully, horrifyingly well written.
On the other hand, the way that it's written feels, at time, a bit too try-hard. I don't believe every memoir or book needs to feel "authentic" because what is authenticity in 2021? However, the tone throughout the piece was dissonant and didn't quite work for me in some areas.
I also felt deeply uncomfortable with how needy and self reliant Cyrus depicted themselves as, but that's purely because that would make me deeply uncomfortable irl.
And there were some conversations around gender that felt incredibly reductive to me, but again that's incredibly subjective to my own experiences.
On one hand, the conversation around gender dysphoria and identity felt deeply relatable to me, and it was so wonderfully, horrifyingly well written.
On the other hand, the way that it's written feels, at time, a bit too try-hard. I don't believe every memoir or book needs to feel "authentic" because what is authenticity in 2021? However, the tone throughout the piece was dissonant and didn't quite work for me in some areas.
I also felt deeply uncomfortable with how needy and self reliant Cyrus depicted themselves as, but that's purely because that would make me deeply uncomfortable irl.
And there were some conversations around gender that felt incredibly reductive to me, but again that's incredibly subjective to my own experiences.
lucas_madden's review against another edition
2.0
I appreciated Dunham's poetic language and the way they analyzed their transition through their relationships with others, but their explicitness was off-putting at times and would take me out of the narrative. I also would've liked to see a little more analysis of the privilege associated with being an upper-middle-class, White person from New York, other than the disdain that they seem to have toward their sister's fame (or fame in general.)