Detransition, Baby

A Novel

Hardcover, 352 pages

Published Jan. 12, 2021 by One World.

ISBN:
978-0-593-13337-8
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4 stars (3 reviews)

6 editions

Domestic drama in the transfem subculture

4 stars

Cool novel. The characterization of the two main characters (the trans woman and the detrans) is especially strong, that of the main cis woman is weaker. The second half drags its feet a little bit, and the dialogue is a little bit goofy at times, still the whole book is really solid.

An excavation of the crevices of the human heart

4 stars

I feel a need to start out by explaining that this is not my sort of book. Usually when books are not my sort of book, I simply do not read them. This one, however, engaged me sufficiently to pull me effortlessly through all the bits that were not shaped in a way familiar to me, which is very much to its credit.

The general shape of this book is as follows. Ames is living a somewhat boring (to me? But also to him, I think) job at an ad agency and having somewhat thrilling (to him, mostly) sex with his boss. (Probably the fact that this is self-evidently a bad idea adds to the thrill.) Until his boss calls him into her office to ask why she is pregnant when he had assured her he could not get her pregnant. He had been under the impression he could not, …

Provocative, Indulgent, & Revealing...

5 stars

...Torrey Peters provides an emotionally charged whirlwind to her readers through flawed yet ceaselessly lovable characters. This groundbreaking piece on the transgender experience follows Reese - a transgender woman who longs to be a mother - and Ames – who detransitioned from a women and abruptly learns that he is an expecting father. This storyline unfolds hard, over three hundred pages that make you grimace, laugh, cry, and ponder over the conflicts of gender identity.