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3.98 AVERAGE
3.98 AVERAGE
emotional
funny
informative
medium-paced
In a series of short essays and prose, Daniel Ortberg reflects on his journey of identity and his knowledge of literature, relationships, and religion. It is a very self-aware and beautifully written book, leveraging cultural references and experiences to bring the reader along for the journey. It is sad and sweet and when you're complete, you'll have walked miles in an interesting and clever person's shoes for a tour of the gains and losses you have in life.
This is such an enlightening and lovely book of essays.
emotional
funny
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
funny
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
I loved this book. Lavery’s chapters/interludes alternate really effectively between serious contemplation of his transition in the context of both modern and ancient history and hilarious twists on pop culture. His wit made me laugh out loud often, and I always enjoy an author committed to self awareness. This was surprising and funny and thought provoking all in one unique mix.
I love Danny Lavery's humour writing and laughed out loud a few times in this collection. He does very well tying in Biblical and pop cultural references to the story of his transition, and there's a lot of care taken in his writing – I really sense that. But the memoir parts I appreciated most were the ones where he was simply being frank and emotional, rather than overly academic. I don't feel this collection is too cohesive and I found that it really lagged in the bits that were OTT verbose or intellectualised. The funny interludes provide levity, but overall it felt uneven.
Something That May Shock and Discredit You is a quintessentially Daniel Lavery creation, and a total book of my heart. Lavery, one of the founders of my old favorite content website, The Toast, is a writer who’s odd humor always speaks to me, even if his references to various literature and media sometimes go completely over my head. This essay collection blends all his signature wit and power of hilarious observation with more personal dissections of his experience grappling with a sudden and unavoidably nagging question ‘what if I was a man, sort of’, and his subsequent transition. The way Lavery discusses his experiences and thought process is simultaneously so powerful, funny, and profound. I especially resonate with how he continues to use stories from scripture in his conception of self and the world, even as his relationship to the religion of his family/youth has been transformed. This book is so good, reading it made me feel all the things, and I’m so happy to own a copy with Lavery’s “third and final name.” I know it’s kinda weird to be proud of public figure people who are basically truly strangers, but whatever, I am.
Danny continues to delight me, and aside from the jokes there is a lot of extremely touching stuff here on sobriety and coming to grips with gender. Feels good to actually finish something as well, ngl.
funny
reflective
slow-paced
Danny Lavery PLEASE you are very funny and smart but I do not understand all of your references to Classic Literature(TM) and the Bible
I got this out from the library but I am going to have to get my own copy because I am sure that I am going to keep coming back to it and I made so many highlights and bookmarked so much... I don't think I have quite the words for how amazing this book was.
Funny and insightful and also so, so poignantly capturing the essence of so much of my own trans experience in a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek way that had me laughing out loud, nodding along, gesticulating wildly going "OMFG yes, yes, THIS!!!" all throughout the book.
Also, this book should come with a spoiler alert for a whole bunch of different TV shows and movies (most, if not all, ones that I have never seen, and am not likely to see, so it's not something that really matters to me, but I can imagine that it might bother others).
My favourite parts of the book, I think, are the sections that tell the story of the renaming of Israel (and it's spread over a few chapters, not just the one that's shared in the excerpt here: https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/02/danny-m-lavery-excerpt-something-that-may-shock-and-discredit-you-jacob-israel.html)
And here are some of my other favourite quotes:
This particular quote (the one above) I think I'm going to want to do some blogging about sometime soon, because it ties in a lot to my own coming out/realising that I'm nonbinary experience in some really interesting and important ways and Danny's managed to capture it really succinctly and nicely here.
"my mother always said being a Marxist
is no excuse
for not looking your best
and what I want to know is what are you really angry at,
capitalism or scissors"
(Interlude V. Oh Lacanian Philosopher We Love You Get Up)
This just made me giggle (one of a LOT of things in the book that made me giggle!).
"The story of my life, then, was for years that I was a woman because it did not occur to me that I might have other options, if I cared to investigate them."
(Chapter 10. The Golden Girls and the Mountains in the Sea)
This reminded me both of the quote from an article that I read when I was starting to figure out that I might be nonbinary which I showed/read to people I was coming out to and to a thing I ended up saying a lot at the time (I've known for years now that gender is a social construct, but I somehow never connected that to my gender being a social construct... so what does that mean for me?! So now I can give it a big side-eye and go ok... so my gender is a social construct, so... I can just nope out of gender?!).
And again, this just gave me such a laugh! In part because it's straight up funny, but also because for me, being nonbinary and have quite a varied gender expression, I feel like I can, in a way, "put on" expressions of femininity almost as though they were "womanhood outfits" like the ones described here, and then I can take them off again, put on a more masc/androgynous outfit and keep mixing things up like that. Socially constructing my own gender is great!
Funny and insightful and also so, so poignantly capturing the essence of so much of my own trans experience in a lighthearted, tongue-in-cheek way that had me laughing out loud, nodding along, gesticulating wildly going "OMFG yes, yes, THIS!!!" all throughout the book.
Also, this book should come with a spoiler alert for a whole bunch of different TV shows and movies (most, if not all, ones that I have never seen, and am not likely to see, so it's not something that really matters to me, but I can imagine that it might bother others).
My favourite parts of the book, I think, are the sections that tell the story of the renaming of Israel (and it's spread over a few chapters, not just the one that's shared in the excerpt here: https://slate.com/human-interest/2020/02/danny-m-lavery-excerpt-something-that-may-shock-and-discredit-you-jacob-israel.html)
And here are some of my other favourite quotes:
But it quickly snowballed into a rising sense of panic (Wait a minute. If someone had forced me to transition just because I liked playing with boys' toys when I was nine, I wouldn't have the life I have today. And I like the life I have today! Why are you trying to take my life away from me?) I'd have to do my best to calmly reason away: "You can keep your life! You're not like me. Someone would have told you if you were like me! You'd definitely know by now if you were like me. Even though I didn't know I was like me until quite recently, and it came as quite a surprise. Oh, no--maybe you arelike me. Maybe you would never have known that you were like me as long as I'd never told you, but now that I've told you you've started thinking about it, and once you start thinking about it you can't stop, and now you are going to have to transition--my God, it is contagious! Get everyone out of this coffee shop, for the love of Christ if you want to maintain persistent gender continuity--it's onsetting rapidly, this gender dysphoria, and I don't know who it's going to claim next!"(Chapter 5. Unwanted Coming-Out Disorder)
This particular quote (the one above) I think I'm going to want to do some blogging about sometime soon, because it ties in a lot to my own coming out/realising that I'm nonbinary experience in some really interesting and important ways and Danny's managed to capture it really succinctly and nicely here.
"my mother always said being a Marxist
is no excuse
for not looking your best
and what I want to know is what are you really angry at,
capitalism or scissors"
(Interlude V. Oh Lacanian Philosopher We Love You Get Up)
This just made me giggle (one of a LOT of things in the book that made me giggle!).
"The story of my life, then, was for years that I was a woman because it did not occur to me that I might have other options, if I cared to investigate them."
(Chapter 10. The Golden Girls and the Mountains in the Sea)
This reminded me both of the quote from an article that I read when I was starting to figure out that I might be nonbinary which I showed/read to people I was coming out to and to a thing I ended up saying a lot at the time (I've known for years now that gender is a social construct, but I somehow never connected that to my gender being a social construct... so what does that mean for me?! So now I can give it a big side-eye and go ok... so my gender is a social construct, so... I can just nope out of gender?!).
Then came the question, the sudden uncertainty, the loss of faith in my future, the giving-way of self-satisfaction to panic. I imagined the solution to my problem to look something like this:(Chapter 10. The Golden Girls and the Mountains in the Sea)
SELF: "Excuse me, my womannes is broken and I'd like to speak to the manager of ... girls, I suppose, so that someone can repair it or exchange it for another womanhood of comparable value."
MANAGER: "Ah, welcome to Being-a-Woman. Yes, I see your problem right here. The good news is that there are many ways to be a woman. Here are a few options we have available in your size--if you'd care to step in the back and, ah, try them on? It's a poorly lit fitting room and you'll feel terrible wearing them. That's how you'll know it's working!"
SELF: "Thanks very much. I'll take the gray with the blue trimming. May I have a receipt in case I need to make another exchange later on?"
MANAGER: "But of course. Bonne journeé, madame."
Followed, of course, by a graceful exit and a renewed zest for living.
And again, this just gave me such a laugh! In part because it's straight up funny, but also because for me, being nonbinary and have quite a varied gender expression, I feel like I can, in a way, "put on" expressions of femininity almost as though they were "womanhood outfits" like the ones described here, and then I can take them off again, put on a more masc/androgynous outfit and keep mixing things up like that. Socially constructing my own gender is great!