A review by the_lobrarian
Tomboyland: Essays by Melissa Faliveno

"Is there anywhere that you feel like you can be your full self." I ask. 
"No!" she yells, slapping the table and laughing. It's a huge, contagious laugh, and it cuts through the noise of the bar. A few college kids look over at us. "Never! I don't think I've been my full self anywhere. I don't even think that's a thing."
We laugh, because it is kind of funny, and because we both understand on some level that the idea of a whole self seems like the dream of a much younger person, who has yet to make the hardest decisions - the kind that thrust a person down one path instead of another; the kind that are immutable. We laugh because we both know now it's not possible. But as we part ways that night, and I watch the blinking taillight of her bike disappear into the darkness, I grieve the person who used to think it was." [p. 218]