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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
reflective
medium-paced
Reading a heartfelt or informative or humorous take on transitioning genders would be something I would be interested in reading. Unfortunately this book didn’t really tick any of those boxes although it felt like it was trying to clumsily approach some of them at times. Of course that’s only my narrow experience– obviously other encounters will vary. It just often felt like overly long Instagram updates or at times David Sedaris with all the humor and life sucked out of it. For example, the parts about William Shatner ‘felt’ like they should elicit a chuckle but a groan likely wasn’t the intended reaction.
DNF. 47%. Started okay, although never really more than mildly interesting, but it quickly descended into a narcissistic pity party for someone who seemed like they would could tell you exactly how many twitter followers they had as well as every other trans writer that they deemed a rival. I'm sure that growing up in the wrong body must screw with your ego but... y'know... 1.5 stars for what I managed to read.
at this point im mostly "dont even talk to me unless your transmasculinity is deeply entwined/in a symbiotic relationship with your childhood religious-ness/mess".
+don't understand how this isn't the It Book of the year. we, as transmascs, should've been carrying this around everywhere/talking about it nonstop as much as we carried around the lou sullivan diaries six months ago.
+don't understand how this isn't the It Book of the year. we, as transmascs, should've been carrying this around everywhere/talking about it nonstop as much as we carried around the lou sullivan diaries six months ago.
I was listening to this rather than reading and thought that would draw it out longer than I would spend reading it otherwise. But I sped through it just as quick! One particular moment that sticks out to me takes place in my bathtub, where I am sitting down in the shower because my legs hurt but I need to scrub my face. I have the book playing on the speaker, and he is explaining a story of two believers crossing a river together, worried about their feet teaching the bottom. He is in the river, feeling the current flow by. I am sitting among a mass of tiny rivers, flowing past my toes to the drain. I think of DBT, and one of the only meditative practices I ever took a shine to - thinking of myself sitting in the middle of a river, and letting thoughts flow past. Noticing them as they rise, and watching them as they go.
Listening to Daniel Lavery was definitely a meditative experience. A lot of it was recursive, presenting a scenario or narrative and then returning to it from many different angles in order to experience it fully while also laying the narrative bare so that all it's questions can also be seen. I appreciated this particularly in the case of many references to media that I had no context for, especially the Bible.
There were certain things that he sometimes speaks about as if they are universal. Not literally - he is an extremely self conscious writer, so he would never make a statement like that without qualifications, but that does make the instances where he does seem to assume that most people's experiences fall in line feel all the more surprising. Two main examples were neck acne and a scene in a movie whose name I now can't remember. Re: the scene, I remember him saying, "Even if you haven't seen the movie, you've seen this scene." But the amount of movies I've never heard of - let alone seen - is without limit!
To be clear, the entirety of this book felt squirmingly personal and seemingly intended to drag me specifically! But instead of making it impossible to read, it instead helped me delight in myself. I loved it extremely!
Listening to Daniel Lavery was definitely a meditative experience. A lot of it was recursive, presenting a scenario or narrative and then returning to it from many different angles in order to experience it fully while also laying the narrative bare so that all it's questions can also be seen. I appreciated this particularly in the case of many references to media that I had no context for, especially the Bible.
There were certain things that he sometimes speaks about as if they are universal. Not literally - he is an extremely self conscious writer, so he would never make a statement like that without qualifications, but that does make the instances where he does seem to assume that most people's experiences fall in line feel all the more surprising. Two main examples were neck acne and a scene in a movie whose name I now can't remember. Re: the scene, I remember him saying, "Even if you haven't seen the movie, you've seen this scene." But the amount of movies I've never heard of - let alone seen - is without limit!
To be clear, the entirety of this book felt squirmingly personal and seemingly intended to drag me specifically! But instead of making it impossible to read, it instead helped me delight in myself. I loved it extremely!
A delightful and delighted book. Reading this felt really intuitive and also like someone was rearranging the furniture in my brain. It is such a desperately good and theologically insightful book that's so, so incisive and kind (sometimes I try to explain my enjoyment of Danny Lavery's work by saying, "He's the best possible outcome of being raised extremely Protestant."). It is also extremely funny. Not every essay/piece bowled me over completely, but the ones that did--boy oh boy will I be thinking about them for a long, long time.
Daniel Ortberg is an icon. This book is such a specific sort of queer millennial humor that speaks directly to my soul. A thousand stars forever.
I wanted to like this so much more than I did. I think I just really, really don’t care for this many Biblical references. Every time there was a giant excerpt from Pilgrim’s Progress or whatever, my eyes glazed over. I kept finding myself skimming for when he would actually start to talk about himself again — and then it would often slip immediately into more references that (a) I didn’t get, and (b) often didn’t even feel particularly related to the actual story being told.
That being said, I really appreciated everything re: his experience of transitioning. Also, the Mean Girls interlude and the chapter about Shatner were absolutely delightful.
Just would have appreciated less Jesus. YMMV.
That being said, I really appreciated everything re: his experience of transitioning. Also, the Mean Girls interlude and the chapter about Shatner were absolutely delightful.
Just would have appreciated less Jesus. YMMV.
This is such an enlightening and lovely book of essays.
Bizarre, profound, funny and very real. Thank you Danny <3