An emotional, engaging, and informative look at the real-life struggles and triumphs of trans people.
A collection of statistics and personal stories from people within the trans community.
After years of research, Boylan, the parent of a transgender young adult, and Kirby, a therapist specializing in gender-diverse teens, have assembled a collection meant to both educate and inspire. Accounts from the transgender community and their parents—covering issues such as identity, coping with familial rejection, etc.—mix with more encyclopedic information, such as the definitions of terms like biological sex and gender. Occasional graphics feature answers to questions such as, “How would you describe gender dysphoria in 10 words or less?” The authors explore all aspects of the transgender journey, from the idea that not all “gender-diverse” people feel the need to medically transition to becoming an ally. Each section begins with an excerpt from Rula Sinara’s Just Embrace, while occasional boxes feature “Thoughts from a Therapist…” that offer a professional’s advice for parents (on teens exploring gender diversity, for example, or desiring a legal name change). The final section includes the results from two surveys in which 150 additional participants answered questions like, “What has been the hardest part of your gender journey?” Boylan and Kirby approach the subject with openness and compassion, exploring not only the basics behind the trans experience, but also more peripheral topics, like autism (which is common in the trans community) and religion (which is often a tricky topic for trans people and their families). But the true emotional impact occurs when the authors hand over the stage to those who are trans: “They want to erase us. They say they hate the sin and love the sinner as they silently watch us die. And the reason is that we make them uncomfortable because we are different, and they could never be. And that is our superpower.” With an extensive list of resources, as well as intimate anecdotes, this anthology could prove to be a true lifeline for trans youth and adults.
An emotional, engaging, and informative look at the real-life struggles and triumphs of trans people.Pub Date: Aug. 23, 2024
ISBN: 9798218489502
Page Count: 310
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.
Words that made a nation.
Isaacson is known for expansive biographies of great thinkers (and Elon Musk), but here he pens a succinct, stimulating commentary on the Founding Fathers’ ode to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His close reading of the Declaration of Independence’s second sentence, published to mark the 250th anniversary of the document’s adoption, doesn’t downplay its “moral contradiction.” Thomas Jefferson enslaved hundreds of people yet called slavery “a cruel war against human nature” in his first draft of the Declaration. All but 15 of the document’s 56 signers owned enslaved people. While the sentence in question asserted “all men are created equal” and possess “unalienable rights,” the Founders “consciously and intentionally” excluded women, Native Americans, and enslaved people. And yet the sentence is powerful, Isaacson writes, because it names a young nation’s “aspirations.” He mounts a solid defense of what ought to be shared goals, among them economic fairness, “moral compassion,” and a willingness to compromise. “Democracy depends on this,” he writes. Isaacson is excellent when explaining how Enlightenment intellectuals abroad influenced the founders. Benjamin Franklin, one of the Declaration’s “five-person drafting committee,” stayed in David Hume’s home for a month in the early 1770s, “discussing ideas of natural rights” with the Scottish philosopher. Also strong is Isaacson’s discussion of the “edits and tweaks” made to Jefferson’s draft. As recommended by Franklin and others, the changes were substantial, leaving Jefferson “distraught.” Franklin, who emerges as the book’s hero, helped establish municipal services, founded a library, and encouraged religious diversity—the kind of civic-mindedness that we could use more of today, Isaacson reminds us.
A short, smart analysis of perhaps the most famous passage in American history reveals its potency and unfulfilled promise.Pub Date: Nov. 18, 2025
ISBN: 9781982181314
Page Count: 80
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: Aug. 29, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
PERSPECTIVES
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