A brief but powerful and affecting book on the struggles of the trans community.
A trans author presents a discussion about being trans in a cis world.
Anyone can be trans, from entertainers to cashiers to members of one’s family, notes Radclyffe. Why, then, he asks, has discourse around this topic “become a pinball machine” in which trans people are the ball, ricocheting against the walls? Radclyffe asserts that it’s partly a matter of perspective. Some voices are simply louder, he notes—journalism, politics, and religion are largely cisgender domains. Using his own personal experience, wit, and enthusiasm, the author guides his readers to viewpoints that may be new to them. On the subject of trans kids competing in sports, he invites readers into the mind of a child on a soccer team. The child has body dysmorphia but is happy and at peace with her teammates. To ban her from playing, the author says, means only considering the feelings of cis people who feel threatened. At another point, the author explains that he didn’t transition from one sex to another, but “changed my body to become itself.” Overall, Radclyffe presents an empathetic and insistent work that effectively brings clarity to several topics for people who might lack it. For example, he uses an analogy of sheep in pens to illustrate a “binary world, where the two sexes are separated off from each other. There is no migration, there are no gates between the fields, and the fences never move.” He points out that such thinking is limiting (“Why can’t we just have full run of the countryside?”) and driven by misogyny, and he clearly expresses his belief that all feminists should embrace trans rights, because the “mythical hierarchy of female weakness / inferiority and male strength / superiority can only exist if the two sexes remain separate.” He also notes the many gender identities to choose from beyond the binary male/female option (Radclyffe posits that there are between 72 and 93). In addition, the book contextualizes such often-misunderstood topics as gender therapy and gender-affirming surgery.
A brief but powerful and affecting book on the struggles of the trans community.Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023
ISBN: 9798987019979
Page Count: 90
Publisher: Unbound Edition Press
Review Posted Online: Nov. 27, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2024
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.
Enduring the unthinkable.
This memoir—the first by an Israeli taken captive by Hamas on October 7, 2023—chronicles the 491 days the author was held in Gaza. Confined to tunnels beneath war-ravaged streets, Sharabi was beaten, humiliated, and underfed. When he was finally released in February, he learned that Hamas had murdered his wife and two daughters. In the face of scarcely imaginable loss, Sharabi has crafted a potent record of his will to survive. The author’s ordeal began when Hamas fighters dragged him from his home, in a kibbutz near Gaza. Alongside others, he was held for months at a time in filthy subterranean spaces. He catalogs sensory assaults with novelistic specificity. Iron shackles grip his ankles. Broken toilets produce an “unbearable stink,” and “tiny white worms” swarm his toothbrush. He gets one meal a day, his “belly caving inward.” Desperate for more food, he stages a fainting episode, using a shaving razor to “slice a deep gash into my eyebrow.” Captors share their sweets while celebrating an Iranian missile attack on Israel. He and other hostages sneak fleeting pleasures, finding and downing an orange soda before a guard can seize it. Several times, Sharabi—51 when he was kidnapped—gives bracing pep talks to younger compatriots. The captives learn to control what they can, trading family stories and “lift[ing] water bottles like dumbbells.” Remarkably, there’s some levity. He and fellow hostages nickname one Hamas guard “the Triangle” because he’s shaped like a SpongeBob SquarePants character. The book’s closing scenes, in which Sharabi tries to console other hostages’ families while learning the worst about his own, are heartbreaking. His captors “are still human beings,” writes Sharabi, bravely modeling the forbearance that our leaders often lack.
A dauntless, moving account of a kidnapping and the horrors that followed.Pub Date: Oct. 7, 2025
ISBN: 9780063489790
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Harper Influence/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 15, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2025
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.
Another chapter in a long fight against inequality.
Building on his Fighting Oligarchy tour, which this year drew 280,000 people to rallies in red and blue states, Sanders amplifies his enduring campaign for economic fairness. The Vermont senator offers well-timed advice for combating corruption and issues a robust plea for national soul-searching. His argument rests on alarming data on the widening wealth gap’s impact on democracy. Bolstered by a 2010 Supreme Court decision that removed campaign finance limits, “100 billionaire families spent $2.6 billion” on 2024 elections. Sanders focuses on the Trump administration and congressional Republicans, describing their enactment of the “Big Beautiful Bill,” with its $1 trillion in tax breaks for the richest Americans and big social safety net cuts, as the “largest transfer of wealth” in living memory. But as is his custom, he spreads the blame, dinging Democrats for courting wealthy donors while ignoring the “needs and suffering” of the working class. “Trump filled the political vacuum that the Democrats created,” he writes, a resonant diagnosis. Urging readers not to surrender to despair, Sanders offers numerous legislative proposals. These would empower labor unions, cut the workweek to 32 hours, regulate campaign spending, reduce gerrymandering, and automatically register 18-year-olds to vote. Grassroots supporters can help by running for local office, volunteering with a campaign, and asking educators how to help support public schools. Meanwhile, Sanders asks us “to question the fundamental moral values that underlie” a system that enables “the top 1 percent” to “own more wealth than the bottom 93 percent.” Though his prose sometimes reads like a transcribed speech with built-in applause lines, Sanders’ ideas are specific, clear, and commonsensical. And because it echoes previous statements, his call for collective introspection lands as genuine.
A powerful reiteration of principles—and some fresh ideas—from the longest-serving independent in congressional history.Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9798217089161
Page Count: 160
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Oct. 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2025
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
