I read "She's Not There" by Boylan and liked it; liked this one less and skimmed a lot of it. It seemed to be written in a more flippant way and the ghost encounters just didn't hold my interest. ( )

Excellent and clever use of memoir to tackle larger issues. Ms. Boylan is a great writer with a real talent for comedic dialogue and atmospheric, emotional description. I loved this book and highly recommend it. ( )

A fascinating story woven with the backdrop of a transgender young man haunted both by his phsyical identity and the physical haunting of a house in main line Philadelphia. It is a very poignant, at times sad and then humorous book. I deeply admire the struggle of the author and the way in which she wrote this moving story. The call to be real and to "find ourselves" is one in which we all struggle to achieve on varying levels. ( )

This was a book that I couldn't put down, and I found it a quick, fascinating read. The entire memoir is centered around the metaphor of a haunting: There's the physical haunting that the author felt in her old house when she grew up, and the idea that the author felt haunted in her own body while growing up the wrong gender.

The author's humor is present throughout the book, but it is bittersweet, cultivated through years of feeling odd and unaccepted, by others and herself. She has a great eye for detail, perhaps stemmed from her musical talent that was drilled into her by her father, (playing classical music in different rhythms as a personal challenge) and from her empathy (perhaps encouraged by her father making his children stop mid-argument to debate the opposite side.) The result is an engaging novel that is truly touching.

This novel also may help those wishing to understand more about the transgendered, and why they feel they must change genders at the risk of devasting their families. The author herself made her choice after being married with two children. It is difficult not to feel for the author's internal struggle with gender identity. While questions of sexuality are marginally addressed, the author makes it clear that this is not about sex, it's about gender. A line that has stuck with me after reading is "It wasn't a question of who I wanted to go to bed with, but who I wanted to go to bed as." I think that line, most of all, helped me to understand the transgendered's choice to "come out" as a different gender. I believe that this approach handled the issue with dignity.

This book had bonus points for me for being set in the Philadelphia area, which made the setting pop all the more in my head. ( )

Written after She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders, but mostly set before it. A memoir about ghosts and gender identity. Very funny in many places, but also very sad in spots. As with it's predecessor, really thought provoking.

The time frame really brackets the first book. Most of this is about teenage/young adulthood. But some is about present/post first book life. ( )