A review by abbie_
Sorted: Growing Up, Coming Out, and Finding My Place by Jackson Bird

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced

3.5

Sometimes I like to play little games like reading my books in the order I’ve saved them, just to get to titles I’ve saved ages ago but then forget about for one reason or another. So I picked up Jackson Bird’s memoir Sorted via audio and it was quite lovely! Jackson is super charming and reads this book himself, and you feel like pals by the end - probably why he’s had so much success on Youtube (though I personally had never heard of him, I just enjoy any and all memoirs by trans folk). He keeps it fairly impersonal in terms of relationships, again a trait developed from maintaining his privacy on Youtube, and just addresses the facts of his dysphoria growing up, realising he might be trans, and seeking next steps to feel at home in his body. Personally I like a little more juice in my memoirs, but I’m just nosey.

Jackson’s big break on Youtube came from Harry Potter related content, so there is a lot of HP talk but more so about the community that developed around it. This book was published in 2019, so I think slightly before JK became a truly heinous transphobic villain. No one’s trying to pretend HP doesn’t exist, but just in case that does make you uncomfortable and you prefer to be aware!

Overall, just love to see someone come into themselves and be able to truly experience life as they were meant to be. Stylistically very chatty and amiable, nothing that blew me away, but just v lovely.