Reviews with content warning for Suicide attempt - Detransition, Baby

i have a lot of thoughts about this book. i tried to read it about a year ago and it didn’t take but i love the premise of this book and i really wanted to persevere this time!

i don’t know how to feel about the characters, they’re all quite selfish in their own way BUT they do have reasons for a lot of their behaviour? so i could not pick a favourite (or least favourite) either way
it wasn’t as funny as i was told it would be :(
i thought it was incredibly interesting to see the trans experience from the perspectives of all three parties involved. i have learnt a Lot about trans culture from this book, and although it is not the experience of every single trans person i feel like i am now in a better place to understand than i was before.
i didn’t know the ending of this book before i read it so as i was going through i was thinking
why don’t they have the baby yet Ugh why is this just 350 pages of them before having the baby!!??? and then i read the final chapter and understood why
overall it was a struggle to read because of the long chapters and sooo much description but i did end up enjoying it a bit in the end

Content Warnings

neverlandpages4's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

1.0

I had been saving this one for pride month but then decided to read it for the #transrightsreadathon and unfortunately, I really didn’t like it.

I get why most people like this book. It’s edgy, it’s quotable, and it discusses important topics. But other than that, it’s a whole mess.

All the characters were unlikable, especially Reese. A lot of her beliefs about what it is to be a woman and a lot of the things that she makes excuses for, like domestic abuse, were just horrible to read about. I know it’s from a place of trauma and hurt but I really didn’t like her or her notions about womanhood and how fragile and submissive women should be.

At one point in the book, Katrina asks Reese “are we playing oppression Olympics?” And that’s exactly what they continued to do till the end of the book. Instead of validating each other’s struggles, they were constantly trying to take the upper hand of “I have it worse than you.” It was honestly disheartening and annoying at the same time. They both struggled so much, Katrina with her background and her being mixed race and Reese as a trans woman who clearly didn’t get the support she needed. But them constantly going back and forth on who has it worst and who wants to be a mother more made it such a distasteful book to read.

I was fully expecting this to be a 5 star read because of how many good things I’ve heard about it, but it was just all over the place. The characters are extremely unlikable, it constantly goes on tangents about unimportant things like the projects they do at work, nothing is happening the majority of the time, and to quote the book itself “The book was deadly boring.” I also hated how it’s left open-ended.

I liked a few things like the writing and how the book discusses tough topics like destransitioning, divorce, and miscarriages. And the cover is beautiful. But that’s pretty much it.

It hurt me to rate this book this low. But I can’t lie to myself or others just because it’s a highly rated book.

Content Warnings

annaofjesup's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

talonsontypewriters's review against another edition

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challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

friendofdorothea's review against another edition

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challenging slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

I feel bad rating this book so low because it is written by a trans author through such a big publishing company. But it was really bad, and I would have DNF'd if I didn't find an audiobook because the book kept jumping to random moments in time or rants that had no correlation to the plot of the book. There was way too many words and there needed to be like 10 more editors. And with all of the words that were written, I think maybe only 5 pages actually focused on the plot. There were 50+ pages in every chapter, the text was super small and it was extremely inaccessible. Also, the thinking in the book was so flawed and most of the characters sucked, especially Reese who just seemed like a really bad person. There was also so much misogyny and transmisogyny that was not okay. There have been so many positive reviews because people have seen this book as a learning experience, but some of the ways in which this book looks at the world is not okay. I would recommend reading, watching, or listening to some other form of trans media to learn about transness: I.e., Transgender History by Susan Stryker, Paris is Burning, Disclosure, Pose, Gender Outlaw by Judith Butler, hell even Euphoria is a better representation of transness. There is so much wordy writing to get through to learn anything about transness. Also the book seemed to erase non-binary identities a lot of the time and there was no consideration that Ames could have been genderfluid or another non-binary identity. There was so much focus on transness as one thing rather than the expansiveness of transness. The basis of transness is not medicalization and the book almost implied that is the only way to be trans. If a cis person picked this up with no prior knowledge of transness, it could be super harmful especially because most of the reviews are saying this book is a learning guide for them.

The book saw children as merely property. Additionally, womanhood was seen mostly as caring for children or having a baby which is inherently sexist.

The book was supposed to be funny but nothing about it was funny whatsoever. The summary made it seem like these women were going to be raising a baby together and that’s what I was expecting to see within the first couple chapters not just filler. The ambiguous ending sucked.
10/10 do not recommend and I am surprised by the overwhelming amount of positive reviews. THIS IS NOT GOOD TRANS REPRESENTATION AND DO NOT PICK THIS UP TO LEARN ABOUT TRANS PEOPLE! I really wanted to root for a trans author but im sorry this book was not the one.

All of these characters deeply need therapy tbh (preferably feminist therapy)

Content Warnings

afisher121's review against another edition

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challenging emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective sad slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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