Reviews - At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery

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198 reviews for:

At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons from a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery

I'll admit, I was hoping for something more of a coherent biography than an advice column. There was an element of that, but as an agender person (who also only figured that out as a 30yo) I hoped for this book to resonate with me more than it did. Which isn't to say it doesn't have value! (If you're intersex in particular, you might feel differently connected to the material than I did.)

meliemelo's review

2.25

informative reflective slow-paced

Some interesting points but very disjointed.

mangomerle's review against another edition

2.75

informative reflective slow-paced

The age gap is icky and I could not get past it. This reads much less like a memoir and more like an informational publication. Some of the cultural stuff was interesting, but overall I didn't really enjoy this read and found it kind of a slog to get through.

Content Warnings

kenyuen1's review against another edition

4.0

An interesting read into the mind of Shou Arai. The book is mostly a four-panel comic format where topics are discussed (and frequently ends on a punchline). Because of this, it sort of reads a bit like a stream of consciousness, where Shou talks about whatever crosses their mind, and it's a bit hard to tell how serious some of the discussions are.

They talk about topics of self-image, growing older, an age gap between partners. Because of the format, everything is discussed frankly and openly. So I was a little surprised by how open some of the discussions of sex was.

If you want to learn more, they reference a documentary that they created in 2019. It's available on YouTube "No Gender! The Queer Life of an Intersex Manga Artist"

goldenjunegem's review against another edition

3.0

informative fast-paced

Content Warnings

ikai's review against another edition

emotional funny informative reflective

btheb's review against another edition

3.0

funny informative fast-paced

zombiezami's review against another edition

DID NOT FINISH

I thought that this would be more narrative-driven, which I would’ve preferred. Instead, it was a bunch of observations on gender stereotypes/expectations that I didn’t care about