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Loading... She's Not There: A Life in Two Gendersby Jennifer Finney Boylan
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. Description: White hardcover w/silver lettering. Top and bottom edge of book w/ light bumps - nothing extreme. Light corner scuffs.Unmarked, solid copy otherwise. Jacket w/a few shallow scrapes to cover (not through). Light edge/cornerwear. Not clipped. Signed by author on title page. A true story of gender, life and love. 300 pp.  jerimarie | Nov 1, 2009 |  I really wanted to like this book, but found myself disappointed. Perhaps people who have never thought about issues of gender, or who don't know any transgendered people, might get something out of it, but I found it superficial and, frankly, boring. In part, I found that the memoir ended just when it was getting interesting, after Boylan finally came to terms with herself and transitioned fully to being female -- I would have wanted to read more about how her wife and sons dealt with the transition, how she was regarded at work, and so forth. Instead the book just ended. It may sound callous, but being transgendered does not, in itself, make someone interesting enough for me to want to read a memoir, and Boylan doesn't give me any more reason to be interested. (  ) lorax | Sep 10, 2009 | Such good writing making for such good reading. (  ) damsorrow | Jun 11, 2009 | I like creative nonfiction and I enjoy the essay as a form, but I'm often impatient with book-length memoirs--perhaps because real lives are not stories and getting them into the guise of narrative often comes off as artifice rather than artful. She's Not There works partly because the part of her life Boylan relates is story-like in the sense that it has a story arc with a natural beginning, middle, and end (or, at least, stopping point). But that's really a minor consideration with this book I think; what makes it so compelling is Boylan's skillful prose, her apparent honesty on the page, and her ability to evoke in the reader an awareness of one's own deeply (and, perhaps unconsciously) held notions and prejudices about gender and identity. Recommended. (  )1  lycomayflower | Jan 21, 2009 | This was probably the first book I ever read that focused on gender and the idea of identifying as transgendered, which is really interesting because by now I've read lots of books and articles on the topic. Jennifer Finney Boylan wrote this book about her transition from male to female, but also about her life before her transition, and how she lived with the knowledge that she wanted to transition for quite a long time before coming out to anyone. This book reminds me a bit of the movie 'Normal', because the stories of the main characters are similar, but the communities they live in and the reactions of their families are a bit different. ( ) gillis.sarah | Jan 12, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
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The provocative bestseller She’s Not There is the winning, utterly surprising story of a person changing genders. By turns hilarious and deeply moving, Jennifer Finney Boylan explores the territory that lies between men and women, examines changing friendships, and rejoices in the redeeming power of family. Told in Boylan’s fresh voice, She’s Not There is about a person bearing and finally revealing a complex secret. Through her clear eyes, She’s Not There provides a new window on the confounding process of accepting our true selves.
“Probably no book I’ve read in recent years has made me so question my basic assumptions about both the centrality and the permeability of gender, and made me recognize myself in a situation I’ve never known and have never faced . . . The universality of the astonishingly uncommon: that’s the trick of She’s Not There. And with laughs, too. What a good book.” —Anna Quindlen, from the Introduction to the Book-of-the-Month-Club edition.
(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:19 -0400)
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