Reviews

I'm Looking Through You: Growing Up Haunted by Jennifer Finney Boylan

jude7's review

emotional funny

5.0

I really enjoyed this book - I had a *lot* of bookmarks by the end, and good quotes. The part where she said that she (as an adult) was the ghost she saw in the mirror as a kid really surprised me, and I liked that concept, almost like a guardian angel.

ayaktruk's review against another edition

4.0

Don't read this if you live alone, in an old house, or happen to be alone in an old house.

bellamyhill's review

funny reflective sad tense medium-paced

3.75

amysbrittain's review against another edition

3.0

I was really taken with this one after some initial hesitation--a little indulgent over-writing early on almost scared me off. I kept looking forward to getting back to it and found the author's voice really appealing. Her treatment of the ghost/haunted house she grew up in felt right, too. I was willing to suspend my disbelief since she showed a little cynicism herself.

I didn't realize the author of this memoir was transgendered when I started it...and I ended up surprised by how that unusual twist wasn't the book's focus (I believe it *was* the focus of She's Not There, another of her books).

cailarue's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring lighthearted reflective medium-paced

4.0

ra042312's review

emotional funny inspiring reflective slow-paced

3.75

erinp423's review against another edition

adventurous hopeful reflective slow-paced

3.0

melissakuzma's review against another edition

3.0

I liked this book but found it a little uneven. There were times where I thought "why is she telling me this?" But it did make me laugh out loud a few times and I find her fascinating. Definitely going to read her first memoir!

trudilibrarian's review against another edition

3.0

I've been on a memoir kick lately and this one by Jennifer Boylan is quite enjoyable. Boylan's irreverent wit knows no boundaries, and her candid descriptions of what it was like to grow up as a boy wishing she was a girl revealed to me a heretofore unimagined life. Boylan's plight struck me as heartbreaking - yet her courage and perseverance are ultimately inspiring. What is this life but our search to uncover who we really are and who we really want to be? At its core, Boylan's memoir is an unconventional coming-of-age tale you won't soon forget.

I did not know quite how to assimilate Boylan's numerous encounters with spirits, mists, and otherworldly bumps in the night. In hindsight, even Boylan questions if she really experienced something supernatural, or if it was herself she was haunting all along:

Was it possible, I thought, as I looked at the woman in the mirror, that it was some future version of myself I'd seen here when I was a child? From the very beginning, had I only been haunting myself? (249)

Whatever the case, whether you take the hauntings as literal or metaphorical, Boylan's honesty about her experiences gives the memoir a unique texture that left me questioning my own beliefs in the possibility of an afterlife.

lindapatin's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny hopeful inspiring slow-paced

4.0