The "Gender Story" parts of this coming of age story saved it from being a two-star memoir. All in all, a perspective and voice that I really enjoyed. Would recommend.

Standout bits:

- The preface and bits of Part 1 resonated deeply with me as a fellow southerner. The oppressive toxic masculinity in that environment made me also very aware of the "right way" and "wrong way" to walk and talk, and sit and dress, etc. And I'm a very masculine looking cis hetero white male.

- They may have been oversimplifying their position, and I may have misunderstood the nuances of what they were saying, but I was startled to hear Jacob's tirade about the relative unimportance of gay marriage and its legal status.

- Jacob comes across as very young ("smacks of 20 year old" is how I kept describing the tone of the book to myself) which in turn made me feel really old. Wrapped up in this is--despite their very real trauma and angst over their gender identity--an overall impression of them being sheltered, protected, and cocooned: they had a (mostly, relatively) supportive family, a network of friends, a supportive church group (which, again as a fellow southerner with first hand experience of how oppressive and closed-minded church groups can be, was a surprise to me!). It sounds like they were super popular and successful both in high school and in college. They had the resources to be able to turn down Harvard in favor of a full ride to Duke.. there's just a whole lot of privilege here. And very little recognition or awareness of this. And I'm sure I'd sound obnoxious too if I started writing a memoir in my early/mid 20s. (The precociousness of which Jacob admitted to.)

- That weird, somewhat sexually violent fantasy surrounding the one instance of harassment they experienced on campus