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AllieGurl · Marc Jacobs

Trans-sister Radio Thoughts??

jacL · Coach

I read this book last fall. The book brought up a lot of interesting and thought-provoking points but it was very predictable to me.

**SPOILER**

I thought Allie and her daughter could have been portrayed to have more mixed feelings. Take the first time Allie has sex with female Dana. I expected a lot more weirdness on Allie's part--I mean, even if she is in love, this still is her first time with a woman--a woman who used to be a man--but it was almost as if she was okay with it right away. Same goes for Carly; I thought that even for a mature open-minded teenager/young adult, she would have had at least a few more questions or concerns, either about her mother or her father being with Dana. Their mother-daughter relationship did not seem very real to me. They were more like friends, which I found hard to believe. I do not think Carly acted like a normal daughter.

What I really liked about the book was the question it brought up--how much of love is about sex and gender? I thought about that for days.

Have you read "Midwives?" It is a really great book--better than this one.

AllieGurl · Marc Jacobs

Yes I read midwives, which is what led me to read this book of his too.

I totally agree that carly was not a normal teenager in the way her response was to the entire scenario. She seems so instantly ok with it, especially for a girl who grows up in a rather small town without much interaction with gay/lesbian or transexuals.

SPOILER *****
What actually threw me, was the ending. I thought it was super weird that it ended with her dad and dana ending up together. It actually confused me alot. I mean here the entire purpose of the book is to show that you can love someone beyond there sex , and the entire time dana claims he/she is a lesbian and likes women , only to become a women herself and deceide that she has urges now to be with men. It was a huge contradiction for me.

I would like to read a similiar book with maybe a true story about a long term married couple who experienced this situation. I know there was a story about a couple who were married for 30 years and they went thru this. I guess it would be more believeable, that your soul mate of so long would still be your soul mate. But in this situation Allie was in a very short term relationship with dana, and it seemed a bit extrememe to me.