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rainbowarpaint's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
Graphic: Deadnaming, Misogyny, Outing, Sexism, Transphobia, and Body shaming
Moderate: Infidelity
pkc's review against another edition
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Graphic: Death, Misogyny, Suicide attempt, Suicide, Hate crime, Miscarriage, Infertility, Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, Deadnaming, Grief, Homophobia, Transphobia, and Toxic relationship
sedgewren'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
Graphic: Physical abuse, Sexism, Transphobia, Misogyny, Sexual content, and Toxic relationship
maeverose's review against another edition
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.
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 readlanid'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Graphic: Outing, Infidelity, Sexual content, and Transphobia
Moderate: Body shaming, Domestic abuse, Dysphoria, Adult/minor relationship, Deadnaming, and Abortion
Minor: Pregnancy, Miscarriage, Sexual violence, Misogyny, and Suicide attempt
telliot's review against another edition
Graphic: Deadnaming, Misogyny, and Transphobia
na_no's review against another edition
4.0
Graphic: Transphobia and Misogyny
Moderate: Violence
Minor: Grief, Miscarriage, Suicide attempt, and Death
aliciae08's review against another edition
- 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
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
Graphic: Outing, Misogyny, Transphobia, Suicide attempt, Infidelity, Dysphoria, Miscarriage, Suicide, and Pregnancy
kyrstin_p1989'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? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
Graphic: Car accident, Emotional abuse, Racial slurs, Blood, Medical content, Misogyny, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Transphobia, Body horror, Body shaming, Homophobia, Abandonment, Deadnaming, Domestic abuse, Gaslighting, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Lesbophobia, Toxic relationship, Biphobia, Pregnancy, Death, Suicide, Sexual harassment, Bullying, Outing, Physical abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Sexual violence, Abortion, Death of parent, Infidelity, and Sexism
bookwormbi'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
3.75
I got the impression that much of what I disliked about Detransition, Baby was Peters’s attempt to be write a story that could ostensibly be for all trans women from a very narrow perspective, instead of owning that narrowness. The best parts of the book—the Sex and the City Problem, the juvenile elephants, the journeys of Reese and Ames’s transitions and detransition and the dissolution of their relationship—were the parts where Peters wrote as a white trans woman for white trans women. In the wider book landscape, there are very few trans stories, and even less stories about trans women, and I understand Peters’s desire to try to universalize her experience a little bit. To her credit, she rarely tries to speak for trans women of color (although she certainly speaks for cis women of color via Katrina), and much of the discussion about race and racism seems to be a well-intentioned attempt to telegraph her awareness of her privilege, so people don’t say things like what I’m saying right now. To be frank, I wish this book could be the trans version of one of the thousands of TV shows that centers cishet white men and doesn’t trouble itself to think about anybody else. Peters is not the first queer or trans writer whose anxiety over whether or not Twitter would call them racist I could feel through the page. I’m tired of it, frankly. I am a trans person of color, I know I am exactly who Peters is afraid of, and I understand why. I can see a version of this book that I dislike because there are no people of color in it and the characters’ racial insensitivities go unchallenged. But to be honest? I think I’d respect that version of the book a bit more.
Graphic: Sexual content, Miscarriage, Misogyny, Domestic abuse, and Transphobia
Minor: Racism