What do you get when you cross three women - transgender and cisgender - who’s lives become intertwined when one of them ends up pregnant? You get Detransition, Baby!

This was such a New York book filled with strong Type-A personalities and a quick and witty dialogue! I love that this book exists. It’s Queer, it’s messy, it’s emotional, and it’s a really in-depth character analysis of our three women, Reese, Amy, and Katrina. This book also gives us an inside look at the modern transgender woman’s POV and explores motherhood and what that means when you are not a cis hetero woman.

I did feel that it was too...wordy? You know that viral TikTok “Woke People on Social Media Nowadays” and it’s just the guy saying a bunch of words but overall he’s not saying anything? I don’t want to say that Peters is not saying anything, per se, but it felt like a lot of EXTRA was included and some parts I just wanted her to get on with it. What is that writing style called? Does anyone know wth I’m even trying to say? 😭 Another book that immediately came to mind while I was reading this was Fleishman is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner, which also felt a bit “wordy”.

Overall, the beginning was solid, the middle I struggled with a bit, but by the end it picked up again, and I’m really happy I picked this up! There’s a lot of good in here.

Thank you NetGalley & One World Books for the eARC!

Detransition, Baby is a fascinating, visceral look at the issues and challenges facing the trans community, with characters at numerous points along their journey and with varying levels of identity and examination. They must work to try to understand each other and their choices where they effect them, and wrestle with what desires and drives are "truly" them as well as vestiges of their former selves or absorbed from societal constructs of what they "should" be/have.

Reese is a trans woman who is very sure of her womanhood -- so much so that she is a mother figure to newer entrants just figuring out how to get by, and even craves a baby herself. The story bounces around in time, juxtaposing her relationship with one such trans woman (Amy), and years later when Amy detransitions to again live as a man (Ames). Ames gets his boss pregnant and decides the only way he can be a parent is if Reese is in the picture as well.

Ames' boss is interested and they meet and get close through registering for gifts and other things, and negotiate a number of race and gender misunderstandings that alternately bring them together and push them apart.

This is a great book to help humanize some of the debates around workplace benefits, bathrooms, pronouns, and so many other things going on in our world as we evolve.

Detransition, Baby is packed full of so much life that it's difficult to describe with brevity. There are four central characters: Reese, a trans woman who aches for motherhood, Reese's ex-lover Amy (presently Ames, the titular detransition character), Ames' boss-cum-girlfriend Katrina, and most importantly, Katrina's unnamed fetal pregnancy. Ames assumed he was sterile after years of estrogen replacement living as Amy, and in a cross between panic and love, he attempts to join all four together as a new model of family. After mapping out this uncharted dynamic, we slosh back and forth while Peters takes us from key points in Katrina's pregnancy and those of Reese and Amy's failed relationship. Peters handles the time jump with ease. While this is fairly common literary tactic, I find it's often jarring and moderately confusing, at least initially while the characters are being built and the story finds its legs. That is not the case here.

I don't want to give away anything additional in the plot here because Peters develops it so beautifully. There is so much intimate care and detail put into these characters both externally and internally that I absolutely cannot describe it with any real resonance here. Each character is granted the space to explore their own personal traumas and quandaries about sexuality, gender, race, identity, relationships, family, and mourning without being crowded or rushed. The kicker? It manages to be funny and achingly genuine while prompting you to question your own beliefs about each of those impossibly difficult topics. It's unbelievable.

While I'd certainly say this is written for the trans community (especially as Peters is known for being apart of the trans literary movement by releasing previous novellas on her website at no charge), it's absolutely accessible to anyone. Each character is offered the chance to self-reflect on their mental and emotional processing of conflict in the text as Ames and Reese gently envelop Katrina into queerness 101. if you are not very familiar with LGBTQ+ culture or trans-related terminology, there's plenty to allow you to comfortably navigate the text without feeling like there's a lesson purposely interjected. This is for you too. This is a story that needs to be amplified.

Peters' official debut is executed with mastery. The thoughtfulness, care, and raw honesty Peters put into Detransition, Baby will be with me for a long time. It's heartfelt, complex, and dynamic while being....well, queer. It will make you laugh as it energizes you to dismantle the way our binary systems are created. I hope it will make you want to speak up the next time you need the push.

Every time I sit down to talk about Detransition, Baby, I write pages and pages of reflection. I can’t stop thinking about this smart, funny, emotional book. Some other descriptors: Tender! Nuanced! Sad! Hard! Intimate! Biting! Ow!

Thanks @oneworldbooks for my free e-copy.

Reese, a white trans woman, her white detransitioned ex Ames, & his Chinese Jewish cis divorced boss Katrina attempt to build a family. Taking place during Katrina’s pregnancy & in flashbacks, I was always intrigued to find out where the book would go next. The book was driven by the compelling unfurling of Reese & Ames’ pasts.

These are messy, imperfect, exasperating characters. They’re also lovable people trying to understand what they want in the world. Some fav topics covered: Clashing ideas of womanhood & femininity. Masking hard feelings w intellectualism. The roles sex & kink can play in exploring gender identity.

Peters uses social comedy to slowly reveal the complexity of being a trans woman in the US, distinct from the tidy media narrative where transitioning magically fixes everything. DB fully turns gender on its head and reveals the difficulties AND joys of being trans.

There is full acknowledgment that these are singular experiences of two white trans women.
Peters: “It's important to talk about the fact that what I know, and what I'm writing about, is largely white trans women, and a culture that's largely inhabited by white people. (...) That actually provides me, as an artist, with freedom, because I can say bitchy things. And I feel comfortable being bitchy about things that happened inside of my own culture. (...) I need to make those demarcations. Not just because it's, politically, the right thing to do, it's important for the quality of the art, to be specific and to be incisive as to what's happening.”
I feel hopeful that readers will leave this story knowing they also have to pick up books by trans WOC, trans SWs, etc. Let’s hope the Big Five catch up.

Highly recommend going down the rabbit hole of Peters’ interviews. Some gems: DB serving as a “test case” for her future; cis people engaging in “gender play;” how trans people, not TERFs, own the concept of detransitioning.

What a fantastic book -- it absolutely lives up to the deserved hype it's currently getting. It asks -- and answers -- questions about what it means to be a woman, a man, a parent, a person...and the writing is excellent.

𝐑𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠: 5/5⭐️⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣
𝐈 𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐝 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐨𝐫: complicated relationships, unapologetically queer characters, non-heteronormative family dynamics
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𝗪𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐈 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝: This is one of those books that I loved so deeply but struggle to articulate why. It just checked every box of what I appreciate in a phenomenal piece of writing. I longed to keep reading it, but hesitated to pick it up too frequently for dread of it being over. I learned a lot without ever feeling like I was being taught to. It made me introspective, it made me cringe, it made me laugh. The writing was stunning, the characters were messy, and the ending was just shy of 100% complete so that the reader is left to imagine it beyond the last page. It’s a book that I know I will be thinking about for a long time.

I hesitate to do this because I know it is the kiss of death, but I will compare it to my own personal experience reading Normal People only in the VERY intangible sense that I loved it but know not everyone will; and I don’t know who to recommend it to. But I hope that you read it and end up loving it as much as I did.
⁣⁣⁣
𝐑𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐩𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞: This book took me a long time to read for a few reasons: it was heavy and devastating at times and therefore not something you’ll want to (or should) binge in an afternoon; also, the chapters are long, which for me meant I would only pick it up if I had time to dedicate to it that day.

I loved this engaging, thought-provoking work. The characters were wonderfully developed and interestingly complicated. A fun read that also wrestles with important issues, including motherhood and relationships.

Wow. Just... wow. What a spectacular debut. So much about this book blew me away and left me really questioning what I knew - or thought I knew - about gender dysphoria. Truth be told, I am still somewhat reeling from the experience.

Detransition, Baby asks a lot of questions that made me, frankly, super uncomfortable - though, I realize that that was kindof the point. To be clear, my discomfort does not stem from my having a problem with any of what was asked, but because I'm not at all equipped to answer! And that is not a position I love being in, though I'm admittedly working on it... I am a cis-het woman who is woefully under-educated in anything relating to gender theory. Which is precisely why I felt it was important for me to read this book. Torrey Peters wanted to ask the hard questions, to push the boundaries of what it means to transition, to be a woman, and to be a mother. And holy shit, did she ever succeed at that.

I will admit that this book was hard for me. It isn't a light read. In fact, it was super tough for me to get through and took about two months for me to finish. There are so many little things within its pages that deserves attention, and yet, Detransition, Baby isn't a book that I feel comfortable dissecting. Because sometimes it's better to just shut up and learn it. And, like I said before, I'm still kindof mulling over what I just consumed. What I can tell you, though, is that this book is worth your time and then some. I want Detransition, Baby to get all the attention and win all the awards. It really is a phenomenal novel.

An absolutely riveting debut, I was enthralled with Detransition, Baby from the very beginning. This novel will make you uncomfortable and that's a good thing. It made me question gender, sex and how we define and see ourselves. Complicated and nuanced - it forced me to examine the things I take for granted and don't have to answer for, like having children. I devoured Detransition, Baby - you will too!

Detransition, Baby is funny, riveting, and expansive - it cares about the cis gaze without catering to it. Peters dedicates the book to “divorced cis women” because at the heart of this novel is the idea that failing at womanhood is a brand, if not a sisterhood (cisterhood? - lol?)
The novel is layered with questions that necessitate stark self awareness - reading it highlights how little awareness you had of your own marriage to your experience. By picking it apart, piece by piece, we start to see what is universal and what is trans. The base question Detransition, Baby asks is - how is queerness being gentrified? Each character is an answer. Katrina is white-passing Asian and has miscarried. Her queer awakening is not that she’s queer, per say, but she’s down to queer her life. This is only after her divorce and accidentally conceiving with the recently detransitioned Ames. Her direct counterpart is Reese, equally as impulsive, equally longing for a child, and equally in love with and horrified by Ames. If the two women are a venn diagram, the inner circle ends there. Still, we have to consider Torrey's thesis statement that divorced cis women are the ancestors of trans women. They are the ones who have had to pick up the pieces and reinvent themselves when they lost the things that society told them gave them worth - masculinity and marriage. And in the novel, we see Reese shocked to learn that she can learn from a cis woman, even one who is unassumingly homophobic. They share failing fertility, reinvention, and even the same wry humor/histrionics.
This exploration of gentrification is arbitrated by Ames, whose flux gives him insights from both sides of the womanhood coin.
He detransitions because maleness is his defense mechanism, and frankly, he is exhausted after a traumatic episode. This is where the delineation between being trans and doing trans is important. Ames is still trans, but he is not doing trans anymore. In an interesting twist, he also falls into the lineage of divorced cis women. He is drawing up new boundaries for himself and learning how his life fits into the new him. He loses friends and communities, yet he still made this choice. Why? Well, that's the beautiful, messy story.
Next Peters explores, who decides the tragedy? Maybe in another book, it would be tragic that Ames left his “authentic self” and “became a man again” - but Peters makes it clear that AMES IS STILL TRANS. Peters flashes her poker deck when she reveals that Ames’ deadname is James, not Ames. He never went back, and holding onto the beginning of "Amy" is his little resistance. Reese’s tragedy isn’t that she’s trans, it’s her borderline personality. She is deemed “the only trans girl...whose incessant drama really has nothing to do with the fact that she’s trans…[it’s] just what she makes for herself as a woman.”
This brings us to the next question - “Call her a fraud, a hypocrite, superficial, but politics and practice parted paths in her own body.” This is about Reese being vilified for wanting to be a traditionally beautiful woman. For paying for it. For doing anything short of selling her soul for it. When was the last time you saw in literature the idea that trans girls get slapped on both cheeks? The slap on one side comes from radical cis feminists who call them dangerous, and on the other by the LGB community at large who dictates that wanting to be a woman in the traditional sense is anti-feminist, anti-progress. Both parties want you to be radical within the bounds they dictate. In this rhetoric, freedom of expression stops when it comes to trans girls and sex workers, who are deemed skid marks on womanhood. Reese is a character study on cheering on all types of women, even those who thrive with sugar daddy and like to be valued for their beauty. However, Reese is imperfect. She is pushed to her own limits when asked to acept Ames' detransition. For the greater first part of the novel, she still calls him Amy and even with reconciliation, she is still learning how to cheer on Ames through detransition.
With this we understand, truly, Peters is not here to make a martyr or hero out of anyone. It’s about messy, stupid lives that happen to be trans.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters is a fascinating, well-written novel about an unexpected pregnancy and its consequences on the potential parents. Ames (formerly Amy) has detransitioned back as a man and impregnated his current lover and boss, Katrina, a divorced cisgender straight woman. Ames struggles with his gender identity and dissociation, and has a real problem viewing himself as a potential father to this baby. He believes he can reconcile his issues with this by including his long-term ex-girlfriend, Reese, a transgender woman who desperately wants to become a mother, as an additional parent to the baby. Each of the three main characters is deftly crafted, with vulnerabilities and flaws. Peters has created a layered story, with often hilarious and biting dialogue, and a lot of heart. We learn about the characters in the present and the pasts that helped form them. Detransition, Baby made me think about so many different things, from relationships and why we are drawn to certain people, gender roles and societal expectations, routes to parenthood and being a parent. I loved the intimacy of this book and its nuanced characters, but found the ending a little too abrupt. I wish the present-day timeline covered was longer as I wanted to know what would happen to the characters. I listened to the audiobook, which Renata Friedman excellently narrated. This is a book that will stay with me.

Thank you Random House / One World and NetGalley for providing this ARC.

Review // Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters

❓ Domestic Fiction, LGBTQ+ Fiction, #ownvoices

💗 Character-Driven, Witty, Emotional, Reflective

📖 A trans woman, her detransitioned ex, and his cisgender lover build an unconventional family together in the wake of heartbreak and an unplanned pregnancy.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

"The question for Reese: Were married men just desperately attracted to her?"

Things to Know:
✨ I LOVED THIS BOOK. It was brilliant, witty, emotional, reflective, informative. I laughed, I cried, I cringed. I rooted for the characters, and then wondered what the hell they were thinking. Every bit of writing was intentional. So good!

✨ Detransition Baby is a story of the trans experience. Torrey Peters covers everything from hormones and plastic surgery to feminism and motherhood, touching on TERFs, violence, fetishism, and the fluidity of gender and sexuality. I learned a lot.

✨ These characters! I honestly can't remember the last time I read a book where the characters felt so alive, so real. It's hard to believe that Reese, Ames and Katrina aren't actual people, out and about living their lives around New York.

✨ Detransition Baby had incredibly interesting conversations about motherhood and reproductive rights. Who gets to be a mother? How does one become a mother? Is motherhood the ultimate symbol of womanhood? A cure for loneliness? Unconventional families and living arrangements were also a major theme.

✨ As serious as the themes were, Peters' writing was smart and FUNNY! The book read like an updated, Queer version of Girls or Sex and the City, with added heart and modern sarcasm. I especially loved the memorable cameos from Sarah Jessica Parker and Mark Paul Gosselaar.

"The financial ads said by thirty, you should have saved two years income for retirement. But at age 30, the trans girls Reese knew held most of their investment portfolio in MAC lipstick shades they'd worn once; they spent work days sending each other animated gifs and occasionally got trolled online by actual 13-year-olds."

Read If You Like:
📚 Luster by Raven Leilani
🎶 It's Okay to Cry by Sophie
📺 Gigi Gorgeous' This Is Everything

A new favorite!

Around the early 2010s the were many calls for creators of any form of media to include more deeply flawed women protagonists. We already had Walter White and Don Draper, not to mention Holden Caulfield, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Dorian Grey, and many other flawed male protagonists, but we wanted the same from women. It hasn't been that long since then but there are now many more protags that fit the bill. Mostly white, but occasionally you'll see a flawed women of color in the mix. <i>Detransition, Baby</i> is the first time I've ever consumed a work with a deeply flawed <i>trans</i> woman protagonist.

<i>Detransition, Baby</i> is a work full of contradictions - many that work in its favor but a few that don't. It is absurdly funny even when it's heavy. "Dark humor" is thrown around about a lot of today's literary fiction but in my experience, most of the books that are described as having it are mostly just dark with some extremely subtle humor that occurs once or twice in the first 100 pages. This book on the other hand, is actually funny throughout and there's nothing subtle or apologetic about it.

Another contradiction: this book is both revolutionary and somehow already dated. I can't name any other work that examines the contemporary community of trans women in a way that is both critical and loving. On the other hand, who uses the word "transsexual" anymore? And has no one in this book heard of being non-binary? It might have saved Ames about 75% of his angst.

It's also provocative, sometimes to hilarious and/or poignant lengths, and sometimes it feels like it just provokes for the sake of provocation and completely misses the mark on actually providing any nuance.

From a personal enjoyment perspective, I felt like I flew through the modern-day chapters and then slugged through the flashbacks. Usually I'm all for excessive character development but the flashbacks here could have been seriously condensed.

While largely plotless and ultimately open-ended, I will remember these characters forever. Provocative, thoughtful, lyrical.

Best title ever. Some of my favorite things about reading is how an author has the ability to, with gorgeous writing, take me to a different place. This book does both of these. Written beautifully, I learned about the lives of LGBTQI+ folks going through life searching for love, security, and belonging. Glad I read it and grateful to NetGalley and OneWorld Publishing for the advanced copy.

I don’t know where to start with this book, except to say I’ve never been more grateful to be ace. The way sex runs these people’s lives sounds EXHAUSTING.

Ok, I know it’s much more complex than that. The story was honestly an interesting case study of sex, gender, parenthood and aging through the lives of Reese and Ames. They were both flawed, messy characters, and I loved that about them (even when they made me cringe).

This story was 100% character driven; the main plot was about having a baby (will they be a family or won’t they?) in the present day, but there were throwbacks to Reese and Ames’ lives before Ames’ detransition. I sometimes got bored, because there was SO MUCH focus on sex, or we’d get long inner monologues from Reese (who has very strong opinions about everything). Mostly, though, it was an interesting ride, and a window into this big yet “everybody knows everybody” trans and queer community in New York, which I haven’t seen much of (if at all).

I do agree with other reviewers about the writing of this one; the author used way too many words and metaphors to say simple things. (Like, I get it, you’re a walking thesaurus.) I actually got confused sometimes about what exactly a character was saying or the point they were trying to make because of all the wordiness.

“The whole reason transsexuals transition is because gender matters so incredibly much.”
I’ve been sleeping on this book for days. I had a book hangover after reading it, and I have to warn you: it’s intense.

Reese is a transgender woman and her biggest dream is to be a mother.
Ames is a man who once was a transgender woman. He is dating Katrina - a cis woman - and she’s pregnant. And she’s unsure about the pregnancy. Reese and Ames dated for years, and he has an idea: to introduce Reese to Katrina and work on some kind of “triple parenthood”.

We’re introduced to Ames and Reese before, during, and after transitioning. And in Ames case, detransitioning.
We’re also introduced to a new idea of parenthood, the dream of motherhood for Reese and what she’s determined to do to become a mother.

Three things about this book:
-I have learned SO MUCH about the process of transitioning, what transgender men and women go through, the things they have to deal with. It was emotionally exhausting reading about it, I can't begin to imagine what it is to be in their skin.
-It took me wayyy longer than usual to read this book. It took me forever to understand the timeline. And it’s very slow paced, which is something I’m not used to.
-It wrecked me emotionally.

Highly recommend it!

4.5

Detransition Baby
First of all, let me say the first half of this book was a struggle for me to get through. It felt overly wordy with offshoot stories that went on for pages without contributing anything to the story. I wanted more of Reese (the main character) but all I was getting was Katrina & Ames/Amy. But once I got over the 50% mark I was hooked!

Detransition, Baby (also, how good is this title?) is definitely a character driven novel that does more of exploring the dynamics, emotions, & thoughts of the three main characters than following any sort of plot. If you have never read a book about trans women, or one written by a trans woman, I highly suggest this novel. It gives you a deep-dive look into that community & the struggles they face throughout their lives regarding relationships, motherhood, & friendship.

Reese was a wonderful character, with so much emotional realness & my only complaint is that I felt like the novel didn’t focus enough on her.

Huge thanks to @netgalley & @oneworld for my advanced reader ebook copy! This book is currently on shelves!

Amy and Reese are two trans women who were together until Amy detransitioned. Now living as a man, Ames, is dating his boss, Katrina. Ames gets Katrina pregnant and decides to ask Reese to raise the baby with them. I went into this book expecting a story of making an unconventional family. That is not what this book really is about. Once I got over my disappointment about the story not being what is advertised I enjoyed the book.

The book delves into the pasts of Amy and Reese. It tells the story of their failed relationship and what it's like to be trans. There were passages that needed a lot of editing. The whole metaphor about Ames and the orphaned elephants is longer than the article it references.

I've never read a book that kept me physically present in my own body like this one did. By that I mean it made me aware of things I don't question about my identity and why I don't. It was a different reading experience for me. I think this is an excellent book for anyone to learn about others and themselves.

Thank you to Netgalley for the eARC.

There was a lot, a LOT to think about, and take in after reading this book. The topics being so current mixed with a fictional story is an appropriate vehicle.