Reviews tagging 'Homophobia'

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

227 reviews

milliemarilyn's review

emotional hopeful reflective slow-paced

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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Pregnancy and Transphobia

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Suicide attempt, Homophobia, and Abortion

lil_owl_reads's review against another edition

challenging emotional funny medium-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

4.75

This book almost read like it could be a sociological dissertation. But a dissertation could never have the charm, wit, and love that Detransition, Baby has. It’s impressive to toe the line between direct social commentary and messy romance drama but Torrey Peters does it incredibly well. I want to emphasize what another reviewer said so well: every character does not need to align with and champion your ideals. Every character in this book is messy. And I loved that about them. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Sexual content, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Homophobia and Transphobia

sundayfever's review

challenging emotional reflective slow-paced

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

5.0

This was an incredible read. A book written for trans people, not to explain trans people to the world. Deeply flawed but loveable characters who make mistakes and hurt each other, but with an undercurrent of love. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Suicidal thoughts, Infidelity, Homophobia, Hate crime, Suicide, Transphobia, Outing, and Sexual content

Moderate: Abortion, Deadnaming, Drug use, Emotional abuse, Grief, Misogyny, Racism, Sexism, and Toxic relationship

withlivjones's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad slow-paced

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

4.5

An unapologetic and eye-opening book about the trans experience (although, as the book demonstrates, there is no one way to be trans). The premise was so niche and different but nonetheless it was dealt with in a very realistic way, and the three main characters were all flawed and vaguely unlikeable but written in a way where you could still sympathise with them. Be warned: in order to enjoy the book you need to be comfortable with taking the scenic route to the plot, but Torrey Peters’ writing - if a little meandering - is so brilliant that I got a couple hundred pages in before realising that not much had actually happened plot-wise. I suspect that I’ll be thinking about this book for a long time. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Misogyny, Outing, Miscarriage, Sexual content, Abortion, Pregnancy, Transphobia, and Infidelity

Moderate: Violence, Suicide, Suicide attempt, Homophobia, Injury/Injury detail, and Deadnaming

Frequent use of transphobic and homophobic slurs

teganbeesebooks's review against another edition

emotional informative sad tense medium-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? It's complicated

4.5

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Abortion, Infertility, Outing, Racism, Miscarriage, Classism, Transphobia, Homophobia, Sexual violence, Deadnaming, Medical content, Alcohol, Lesbophobia, Toxic relationship, Cursing, Abandonment, Sexism, Sexual content, Suicide attempt, and Body shaming

fisheyedfish's review

emotional funny informative slow-paced

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

3.0

DNF 
Even halfway through it still felt like a slog. I found myself caring more about the present story but annoyed by the constant flashbacks. 
As a nonbinary person, I was annoyed that the author kept the characters very binary. They were either a man or a woman with no allowance for something in between or discussion of gender as a spectrum. I read Ames/Amy as a genderfluid person but the author and the other characters wanted to shove them in a box.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Misogyny, Pregnancy, Sexual content, Transphobia, Emotional abuse, Domestic abuse, Hate crime, Homophobia, Infidelity, and Sexism

Minor: Outing

cogowno's review against another edition

I read it recently and figured I remember almost everything. Maybe gonna attempt again by the end of the year.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Transphobia, Sexism, and Homophobia

Minor: Racism

b00murded's review

challenging emotional funny hopeful reflective tense medium-paced

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

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Homophobia, Pregnancy, Transphobia, Body shaming, Deadnaming, Outing, Sexual content, Dysphoria, and Suicide attempt

Minor: Grief, Hate crime, Toxic relationship, Cursing, and Suicidal thoughts

shortstackz's review

challenging emotional slow-paced

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

3.5

Parenthood looks and means something different to everyone, and Detransition, Baby dives into what that might look like to a cis woman, a trans woman, and a former trans woman. We take a dual viewpoint from Reese, a trans woman, and Ames, a former trans woman. Exploring how their experience of gender has shaped their views of parenthood. The dual timeline simultaneously covers the years across Reese and Amy's romantic relationship, and the weeks following Ames discovering he has gotten Katrina pregnant. I lov d that the story centered on the hopes and dreams of trans women without saying away from their struggles.

I am a cis woman, of white and Asian decent, which is the lens I was reading this through. Ames brought an interesting discussion of gender and gave me a better understanding of gender dysphoria and maybe the reasons someone would choose to live as their birth gender. The dual timeline of Reese and Ames brings so much light to the daily joys of trans life, which I think will help a lot of cis readers to grow alongside Katrina. I think this would have been strengthened from including vignets or interludes from Katrina's perspective, which could have shown how she was navigating her own journey through parental identity. Katrina makes choices. Those choices are, interesting? I have no idea how she jumps to them other than plot. 

The characters of Reese and Ames are so well developed that the lack of development in Katrina stands out as our main cast of 3. Peters prose is witty, funny, and easy to read. There are fun pop culture references thrown in throughout the pages, and I loved the nuanced gender conversations that occured. I wish Katrina's motivations were more clear to the reader, not front and center but in vignettes scattered throughout. 

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Suicide attempt, Deadnaming, and Transphobia

Moderate: Toxic relationship, Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Ableism, Drug use, and Gaslighting

who_dat_beasht's review

tense slow-paced

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

this strongly brought up the feeling you get of wanting to shove a fork in your brain after you get a text from a friend saying “well I did the thing 😭😂”, and “the thing” is something they complain about doing every single second of waking life, they proceed to send you multiple drawn out paragraphs/voice notes, it just goes on and on, and they’ll never learn, and actually you don’t know why you’re friends, because they’re a horrible person, but then again so are you, and what would you do without them?

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Toxic relationship, Cursing, Homophobia, Grief, Transphobia, Outing, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, Deadnaming, Death, Domestic abuse, and Emotional abuse

Moderate: Abortion and Pregnancy