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A review by actualconman
About a Girl: A Mother's Powerful Story of Raising Her Transgender Child by Rebekah Robertson
5.0
I don't usually rate books because I don't exactly consider myself critical enough of them for my ratings to have much weight, not to mention anything I actually manage to finish is going to have a 4-5 anyway. I'm even more out of my depth here, this being only the second biographical book I've read (and the first wasn't exactly high art; sorry, Abigail). But I know I need to here. I know this deserves it.
The absolute strength of Rebekah's writing is her ability to pull you into the emotion of any point in the story. At the beginning her proclamations of incredible love should have turned off a cynic like me, but I could feel that love pouring into everything she was describing. And when the going began to get tough, when courts start being visited and time starts running out, the sheer stress of reading it made me physically sick. I can only imagine what living it must have felt like, and over months and months, not just the few days I read this for. Anger, elation, pride, exhaustion, you can feel everything that's being described here. This book is an intensely dense whirlwind of feelings that barely even scratches the surface of what must have been felt.
It stands out as an amazing resource for people unfamiliar with the intricacies of being transgender; I'd consider myself more knowledgeable than a great deal of cis people and it still managed to reframe or reinforce things I was unsure on or didn't know as much about. I can only imagine how useful it would be to someone who knew little but was open-minded enough to learn.
Admittedly, some of the extended courtroom descriptions, while understandably necessary, can be somewhat hard to wrap your head around and are somewhat devoid of the close, personal connection that the rest of the book has. Granted that's exactly how court probably feels like, so perhaps that's a win too; I was certainly never totally bored by these moments because by then I was so utterly invested in Rebekah and Georgie's fight.
You almost feel like a part of the family after you've read this, knowing so many details about this life that's been lived, everything they went through, and the descriptions of year 12 woes and VCE results that make you feel like you're right there anxiously hoping things will be okay. It was quite the personal trip for me to be reliving anything related to VCE, but the happiness that comes with Georgie and Harry's scores is absolutely shared by the reader.
In conclusion, powerful, emotional, and an incredibly important story to know and to learn from, as individuals and as a society.
And Aussies, remember to tune in to Channel 10 at 6:30 to catch Georgie on Neighbours! The true power of this book is its incredible ability to make me watch a goddamn soap opera. What am I, ninety?
The absolute strength of Rebekah's writing is her ability to pull you into the emotion of any point in the story. At the beginning her proclamations of incredible love should have turned off a cynic like me, but I could feel that love pouring into everything she was describing. And when the going began to get tough, when courts start being visited and time starts running out, the sheer stress of reading it made me physically sick. I can only imagine what living it must have felt like, and over months and months, not just the few days I read this for. Anger, elation, pride, exhaustion, you can feel everything that's being described here. This book is an intensely dense whirlwind of feelings that barely even scratches the surface of what must have been felt.
It stands out as an amazing resource for people unfamiliar with the intricacies of being transgender; I'd consider myself more knowledgeable than a great deal of cis people and it still managed to reframe or reinforce things I was unsure on or didn't know as much about. I can only imagine how useful it would be to someone who knew little but was open-minded enough to learn.
Admittedly, some of the extended courtroom descriptions, while understandably necessary, can be somewhat hard to wrap your head around and are somewhat devoid of the close, personal connection that the rest of the book has. Granted that's exactly how court probably feels like, so perhaps that's a win too; I was certainly never totally bored by these moments because by then I was so utterly invested in Rebekah and Georgie's fight.
You almost feel like a part of the family after you've read this, knowing so many details about this life that's been lived, everything they went through, and the descriptions of year 12 woes and VCE results that make you feel like you're right there anxiously hoping things will be okay. It was quite the personal trip for me to be reliving anything related to VCE, but the happiness that comes with Georgie and Harry's scores is absolutely shared by the reader.
In conclusion, powerful, emotional, and an incredibly important story to know and to learn from, as individuals and as a society.
And Aussies, remember to tune in to Channel 10 at 6:30 to catch Georgie on Neighbours! The true power of this book is its incredible ability to make me watch a goddamn soap opera. What am I, ninety?