saeflanagan's review

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5.0

Amazing book in that it allows you to feel the struggles of this family as they came to terms with their child being transgender. In a world where we are still quick to judge others, and people are not always accepting, it provided some insight into something that is not well understood. I encourage you to read it with an open mind.

“Anytime we give an individual the freedom to be who they are, the world becomes a happier place.”

And really, isn’t that all that anyone can ask?

evila_elf's review

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4.0

This was an interesting read.

I found the mother very passive and hands off at first, but it is hard to critique the actions of the parents because this is what happened in real life. I enjoyed her honesty and I would love to read a sequel about Ryland growing up.

The use of present tense threw me off some because this is so obviously a story being told of actions that have already happened.

I did go out hunting for the video that she made of Ryland and easily found it on Youtube. Then I dug a little deeper and found a short film that goes into more detail than the video did. This is about 13 minutes long:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2015/03/17/digital-shorts-parenting-transgender-child-orig.cnn

fiarcurrin's review

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4.0

Reading this book was incredibly informative. I remember watching that short on Ryland and first learning about him and reading the book has just been an eye opener. I think this book will do so much good in helping others learn about transgenderism and learn to -if not accept- then understand.

fondantsurprise's review

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4.0

A quite small-c conservative, fairly religious Christian family discovers their child is a transgender boy. This was on the whole a story of a lovely, affirming family although I did find one or two bits hard to get my head around (eg I can understand why they were in denial at first and thought Ryland was ‘just’ a tomboy, but surely even if that were the case, forcing a tomboy to wear bows in the hair and so on as a ‘compromise’ seemed a bit weird. Maybe it’s an American thing. Plus I would have liked to read something from Ryland himself). Overall though they were very supportive of their trans boy and I hope the current climate under Trump doesn’t hurt them or other rainbow families.
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