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A review by lbarsk
Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
5.0
Okay where to even start here. First, DETRANSITION, BABY is as good as everyone says. Peters’ prose is funny and acerbic and unrestrained and frankly just a hoot to read. Just really fun. Second, the way she depicts characters’ mindsets feels very particular and studied without feeling… I dunno, melodramatic? Overwrought? In a book that is VERY emotionally charged, the pacing of these emotions and the ways in which characters express them is spot-on.
On a whole other level, it is fascinating to me that this book BLEW UP because it is SO queer and EVEN MORE trans. Peters deserves such a wide audience — as do trans women of color authors, which she acknowledges in interviews around this book — but the whole time reading it I was like, okay will people outside the community get this stuff? And it doesn’t matter, tbh, because there’s also stuff I don’t have firsthand experience with (i.e., MOTHERHOOD) that still resonated with me and was affecting to read about. But it was shocking in a way, to see stuff I’ve only heard talk about behind closed doors or in crowded bar corners or online so OUT IN THE OPEN.
Finally, despite the amount of time it took me to read this book it’s a fast read — I read it in chunks. Grad School has just kind of sapped so much energy from my life that I have to make a concerted effort to get back to non-coursework books, and I’m hopeful for that effort as 2022 progresses. What a book to kick off the year with !!!
On a whole other level, it is fascinating to me that this book BLEW UP because it is SO queer and EVEN MORE trans. Peters deserves such a wide audience — as do trans women of color authors, which she acknowledges in interviews around this book — but the whole time reading it I was like, okay will people outside the community get this stuff? And it doesn’t matter, tbh, because there’s also stuff I don’t have firsthand experience with (i.e., MOTHERHOOD) that still resonated with me and was affecting to read about. But it was shocking in a way, to see stuff I’ve only heard talk about behind closed doors or in crowded bar corners or online so OUT IN THE OPEN.
Finally, despite the amount of time it took me to read this book it’s a fast read — I read it in chunks. Grad School has just kind of sapped so much energy from my life that I have to make a concerted effort to get back to non-coursework books, and I’m hopeful for that effort as 2022 progresses. What a book to kick off the year with !!!