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A review by transforattention
Man Alive: A True Story of Violence, Forgiveness and Becoming a Man by Thomas Page McBee
3.0
Upon reading Man Alive, I was puzzled by how little it did for me, being as I am its target audience.
While I can empathize and understand aspects of his journey, I felt as though the author omitted his personality in favor of minute details and ten cent vocab. I found myself consistently wanting to know more about him and the (few) other people he mentioned, while instead being given mostly impersonal details about their situations. Details like the temperature of his tea felt unnecessary and out of place in a memoir glossing over the substance of his personhood beyond his gender.
As the book came to an end, I grew increasingly frustrated by the almost happily-ever-after style of its closing. I don't know anyone who has grown a full beard and began to seamlessly pass within one month of HRT, and the complete disregard of this aspect of his Becoming felt like a disservice to both the experience and the reader.
Upon reading any memoir, I hope to see the complexities of life in all their ugly glory. I felt the author provided that in a couple of instances which I found both truly admirable and compelling- this book could not have been easy to write. If he'd stayed with that complexity, with that humanness, all the way throughout, Man Alive could have been a profound experience for me. Instead, I was left confused about all it had lacked.
While I can empathize and understand aspects of his journey, I felt as though the author omitted his personality in favor of minute details and ten cent vocab. I found myself consistently wanting to know more about him and the (few) other people he mentioned, while instead being given mostly impersonal details about their situations. Details like the temperature of his tea felt unnecessary and out of place in a memoir glossing over the substance of his personhood beyond his gender.
As the book came to an end, I grew increasingly frustrated by the almost happily-ever-after style of its closing. I don't know anyone who has grown a full beard and began to seamlessly pass within one month of HRT, and the complete disregard of this aspect of his Becoming felt like a disservice to both the experience and the reader.
Upon reading any memoir, I hope to see the complexities of life in all their ugly glory. I felt the author provided that in a couple of instances which I found both truly admirable and compelling- this book could not have been easy to write. If he'd stayed with that complexity, with that humanness, all the way throughout, Man Alive could have been a profound experience for me. Instead, I was left confused about all it had lacked.