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kallania's review against another edition
dark
emotional
sad
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
2.75
This is not a LGBTQ book... I know what it says in the description but it's not. This is a wildly inaccurate representation of trans life no matter when it took place. (More on this later)
When it's says 'loosely based on a true story' it is an understatement. It is likely that the only things accurate to the story are the names and places involved (and I don't know enough to say even those are.)
While the Lili in real life was trans the character in this book suffers from a clothing fetish and a dissociative identity disorder (split personality)... the triggering event that begins Lili's story happens when her wife asks her to pose as a model in woman's clothes for her painting. The author blatantly writes the crossdressing in this book as if it were a fetish instead of a tool to embrace one's inner self... Their are several times within the book that when Gerda talks to or goes out with her husband Einar and later must recount the conversation/event to Lili because she wasn't 'present'... It is written in such a way that makes you feel like it is a Supernatural account of a ghost entering a person and slowly edging them out of their own being.. Einar and Lili have opposite personalities with different interests, mannerisms, etc... when one appears the other vanishes with no recollection of the time they were gone.
This is supposed to be a love story.. but their marriage isn't healthy.. Gerda completely goes along with the entire thing like it's completely normal and actually goes out of her way to encourage it. Now, if Einar had just said he feels like he has always been/felt like a woman and she had encouraged him/her to be herself I understand that.. but here he is acting like two separate people, has her tell him/her what the other half did because they have no memory and Gerda doesn't try to get him help or even worry about this?
This is not modern day.. and yet she goes with it.. encourages him to crossdress, go out socially with their friends as a female, flirt with guys that don't know their secret.. in the time period encouraging him/her to do these things would have been putting her husband at physical risk.. Einar becomes Lili with no thought as to how it might affect Einar's wife (because she is absolutely not Lili's wife).. and Gerda almost seems to use her husband's new personality for her own amusement...
The real Lili must have been a strong and confident woman to have come out in her time and have gender-affirming surgery... but the Lili in this book is weak, helpless, mentioned several times to be overly thin, pale, and feminine (before Lili becomes Lili).. She looks to her wife for guidance and encouragement every step of the way.. this is not the story of a woman who became part of trans history.
If you're looking for a fantastical tale of an abusive relationship and a man with a dissociative identity disorder in disguise of a romanticed trans transformation then this book is for you. If it's not and your actually interested in trans history please look up real information of the real Lili Elbe and not waste your time reading this very fictional inaccurate account.
When it's says 'loosely based on a true story' it is an understatement. It is likely that the only things accurate to the story are the names and places involved (and I don't know enough to say even those are.)
While the Lili in real life was trans the character in this book suffers from a clothing fetish and a dissociative identity disorder (split personality)... the triggering event that begins Lili's story happens when her wife asks her to pose as a model in woman's clothes for her painting. The author blatantly writes the crossdressing in this book as if it were a fetish instead of a tool to embrace one's inner self... Their are several times within the book that when Gerda talks to or goes out with her husband Einar and later must recount the conversation/event to Lili because she wasn't 'present'... It is written in such a way that makes you feel like it is a Supernatural account of a ghost entering a person and slowly edging them out of their own being.. Einar and Lili have opposite personalities with different interests, mannerisms, etc... when one appears the other vanishes with no recollection of the time they were gone.
This is supposed to be a love story.. but their marriage isn't healthy.. Gerda completely goes along with the entire thing like it's completely normal and actually goes out of her way to encourage it. Now, if Einar had just said he feels like he has always been/felt like a woman and she had encouraged him/her to be herself I understand that.. but here he is acting like two separate people, has her tell him/her what the other half did because they have no memory and Gerda doesn't try to get him help or even worry about this?
This is not modern day.. and yet she goes with it.. encourages him to crossdress, go out socially with their friends as a female, flirt with guys that don't know their secret.. in the time period encouraging him/her to do these things would have been putting her husband at physical risk.. Einar becomes Lili with no thought as to how it might affect Einar's wife (because she is absolutely not Lili's wife).. and Gerda almost seems to use her husband's new personality for her own amusement...
The real Lili must have been a strong and confident woman to have come out in her time and have gender-affirming surgery... but the Lili in this book is weak, helpless, mentioned several times to be overly thin, pale, and feminine (before Lili becomes Lili).. She looks to her wife for guidance and encouragement every step of the way.. this is not the story of a woman who became part of trans history.
If you're looking for a fantastical tale of an abusive relationship and a man with a dissociative identity disorder in disguise of a romanticed trans transformation then this book is for you. If it's not and your actually interested in trans history please look up real information of the real Lili Elbe and not waste your time reading this very fictional inaccurate account.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Emotional abuse, Mental illness, Toxic relationship, and Dysphoria