She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders: Amazon.ca: Jennifer Finney Boylan: Books

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Boylan, English professor and author of the critically acclaimed novels The Constellations (1994), The Planets (1991), and Getting In (1998), began life as a male named James Boylan. In this autobiography, she details her lifelong struggle with her burgeoning femaleness and the path she followed to become a female, both physically and mentally. For 40 years, the author lived as a man, seemingly happy and even marrying a woman and fathering two children. At a certain point, though, she realized that she couldn't suppress her desire to live as a female and so eventually went through all the steps to become female, including sexual reassignment surgery. There is something troubling about Boylan's lighthearted tone, and while she hints at it, there is no really clear depiction of the havoc this transition must have wreaked on her married life (Boylan's wife was clearly devastated) and on her children (who at times refer to her as boygirl or maddy). But Boylan's well-written and informative book is a worthy contribution to the body of work on this subject. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"Beautifully crafted, fearless, painfully honest, inspiring and extremely witty. Jennifer Finney Boylan is an exquisite writer with a fascinating story and this combination has resulted in one of the most remarkable, moving and unforgettable memoirs in recent history."
---Augusten Burroughs, author of Running With Scissors

"In addition to being a complete delight, this book should make us all question what we mean when we use the words love, marriage, and friendship. Jennifer Finney Boylan is a great gift to womanhood."
--Haven Kimmel, author of A Girl Named Zippy

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Customer Reviews

44 Reviews

5 star:		(25)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(7)

Average Customer Review

4.0 out of 5 stars (44 customer reviews)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic book. Humorous, but not overly so., Jan 19 2007

By

Christina Hanford "Christina-fornia" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)

This review is from: She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders (Paperback)

This book is just... fantastic. I am fascinated by this topic and, thus, decided to grab the book! Boylan's writing style is great and draws the reader in immediately! Not only is she humorous, but she knows how tell a story. She works for the English Department at Colby College, so you can imagine she has tremendous writing skills-- which is important for the story. It's wonderful to hear the story of a sex change through the eyes of the ACTUAL person who endured such a thing. Boylan is humorous, but doesn't make light of the subject. She talks about the entire experience, how she always felt like a girl trapped in aman's body... she covers her relationship with her wife and kids, with her best friend...and how things changed How her transition went, what the response to her transition was, what everything was like for her... And she tells the story SO well. It was fascinating. I recommend this book to ANYONE and EVERYONE!

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4.0 out of 5 stars What kind of transgender?, April 14 2004

By

Fay "toby_hm" (Oregon) - See all my reviews

This review is from: She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders (Hardcover)

When looking at trans books, there's a specific type of review I'm always looking for but can't find. So I'm writing it. This was a very good book, but didn't cover the issues I'm looking for. I got my hopes up because of the subtitle: A Life in Two Genders, but if you want a book that discuss what gender is, how it influences our lives, understanding wider gender expression, and confronting the binary gender system, this is not it. Also, the concept of trans as a medical condition that is "fixed" through hormones and surgery doesn't gel with my experience of being genderqueer.
Nonetheless, if you're looking for an excellent, insightful, and compelling story that focuses on the moving from one binary gender to the other, I would definitively recommend this book.

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5.0 out of 5 stars She was there., April 8 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders (Hardcover)

This book was so wonderful. It was better than I thought it was going to be. I couldn't help but feel a little skeptical when this book was first suggested to me but after I read the first 5 pages I was hooked.

Jennifer Finney Boyland tells her story of how it felt to live life in two different genders. She was born into the world as a man, James Boyland, but felt as though something was wrong. He felt as though he was supposed to be a woman, but he never told anyone and held all of those feelings inside. One day he could not suppress these feelings anymore...

This book was written beautifully. It is easy to read and very funny at times. Jennifer Finney Boyland tells you the truth and explains exactly how it is. She doesen't try to hide her true emotions on any topic. She explains how her children felt about their daddy turning into a woman, how the other professors at Colby College reacted to her gender changing, and what her parents thought of the issue.

Richard Russo has written a commentary at the end of the book which is particularly touching. It gives an insight to the reader about the friendship he shares with Jennifer Finney Boyland.

I would reccomend this book to anybody. The topic of which it is written about may be a shock to some people but by the time the reader finishes the book, there is a better understanding of gender issues and difficulties with which the writer dealt with.

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Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars What is this book all about?
I think that I would have liked James Boylan very much - a bright, articulate, witty and decent person (by his own account, admittedly). Read more

Published on Jun 25 2004 by Virginia L. Rogers

1.0 out of 5 stars A Return to Modesty, please.
After reading the last page of this book, I am left both with tremendous pity for his wife and children, and a tremendous sense of contempt for Boylan. Read more

Published on Mar 19 2004 by Manola Sommerfeld