Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

208 reviews

rachellekcmo's review

challenging emotional hopeful

4.0

I have to admit I struggled a bit with this book, from my lens as a rather vanilla cishet woman. But wow, the author drew me into each person’s story, especially Reese’s. They each had such intricately drawn layers to their experiences of friendship, romance, womanhood, potential parenthood. 

Parts of this book made me laugh out loud (that essential oils party was one!), and yet the author did not flinch in showing the uglier sides of life for trans women, including violence against Reese and a painfully awkward outing of Ames. 

No doubt, this is a heavier read than most, but a thread of hope carries through. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy, Sexual violence, Miscarriage, and Transphobia

Moderate: Suicide

rjbedell's review

medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Pregnancy, Homophobia, Sexual content, Outing, Suicide attempt, Toxic relationship, and Infidelity

Moderate: Violence, Injury/Injury detail, and Deadnaming

Minor: Death, Abortion, and Stalking

daniellel's review

challenging dark emotional funny reflective tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia and Homophobia

Moderate: Chronic illness and Pregnancy

maeverose's review against another edition

Maybe I’ll revisit this someday?

It just wasn’t really what I was expecting. I’m not exactly sure what I was expecting. The main characters are very messy people who make questionable decisions, which on one hand is nice to see because it allows trans people to be messy and human just like everyone else without the expectation of perfect representation, but on the other hand, I don’t really care to read about Reese’s questionable sex life for a huge chunk of the book (well, the beginning at least). I feel like all I know about her is she’s trans, has terrible taste in men and little self worth. I also (as a childfree person) really didn’t like how the characters were going about the whole parenting thing. I stopped somewhere in the middle of chapter two, but the way Katrina was like ‘I’m only having the baby if I have a co parent’ made me feel like she didn’t actually want a baby and should probably just get the abortion. As well as Ames using the pregnancy seemingly just as an excuse to kind of get back together with Reese in a way. It bothers me so much seeing people become parents for stupid reasons, and the characters in this book were all way too messy to care for a child, and two of them didn’t even seem like they wanted to.

I have no objective issues with the book, it’s just not for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Pregnancy, Toxic relationship, Transphobia, Sexual content, and Infidelity

Moderate: Miscarriage, Physical abuse, Gore, and Animal death

Minor: Abortion, Infertility, Antisemitism, and Racism

The gore is just animal gore, at least as far as I read

lanid's review

emotional reflective

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Transphobia, Infidelity, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abortion, Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, Dysphoria, Body shaming, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Misogyny, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Suicide attempt, and Pregnancy

luisagerdsmeyer's review against another edition

emotional informative inspiring reflective sad tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Suicide attempt, Suicide, and Pregnancy

ang_mendoza's review against another edition

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Transphobia, Abortion, and Homophobia

Moderate: Violence, Pregnancy, Suicide, Deadnaming, Miscarriage, and Outing

aliciae08's review against another edition

emotional hopeful informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.75

I just finished Detransition, Baby, and I’m still sussing out my thoughts.

The conclusion I’ve come up with is complicated—as it should be, as the characters are complicated. 

What I loved:

• the exploration of womanhood, motherhood, gender expression and queerness;
• The imperfectness of the characters so that the reader knew that no one person’s identity is monolithic. It is entirely one’s own;
• The idea that we can create our own family
• The exploration of why the characters are the way that they are (especially Ames).  

What I didn’t like:

• Others have mentioned the clumsiness of race within this, and how the inclusion of Katrina being the one major character of color might be a metaphor for how the white trans experience isn’t the only one.  It doesn’t work for me fir so many reasons, but the first one being that whenever she brings race up it feels like someone who hasn’t actually experienced being a minority, and because any attempts at relating with Katrina by Reese/Ames are shut down.  
• Some of the writing, as beautiful as it is, was over the top for me.  I was sometimes waiting to get to the end of a chapter and I hate feeling like that. 

What I found challenging:

• Reese said things about womanhood and the need to feel delicate (particularly when she was with Stanley and the Cowboy) that I wholeheartedly couldn’t relate to, but have to admit that at some point in my own life defined my own perception of what it means to be woman and the need for men to view me as someone worthy of being taken care of/defended etc. I think it’s easy for people (especially those looking for an excuse to hate this book) to use it as a way to accuse people like Reese, at worse, of cosplaying womanhood, when that’s not what’s happening. 
• Ames’, before their transition to Amy, misogyny and further internalized misogyny was hard to read, mostly because I grieved for that character. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Outing, Misogyny, Transphobia, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Miscarriage, Suicide, and Pregnancy

sorcha's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful reflective sad

3.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Outing

Moderate: Suicide attempt, Dysphoria, Blood, Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Suicide, Abortion, Death, Injury/Injury detail, Infertility, and Transphobia

effievee's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny informative reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Sexual content and Sexual assault

Moderate: Violence, Deadnaming, Miscarriage, Transphobia, Hate crime, Pregnancy, and Outing

Minor: Infertility, Suicide attempt, and Abortion