Thank you Torrey Peters for writing this book. I feel that the curtain has been pulled back to reveal to all, the varied and complicated life of the trans community. As a straight cis woman, this was a revelation, as I am clueless about this world. Good storytelling and great writing. Thanks to NetGalley for a complimentary copy of the book in exchange for my honest review

A provocative, thought-provoking novel about three people learning how to be a family to each other. It's messy and emotional and touching. The conversations about gender and identity are nuanced and fascinating.

In the interest of transparency, this is the first book I’ve read by a trans author and featuring a trans character, a reality that should not have taken so long to rectify. How stupid of me to assume that I could say “trans lives matter” without reading trans stories and familiarizing myself with trans narratives. BUT THIS REVIEW ISN’T ABOUT ME. Let's talk about the book:⁣
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It is lovely. I laughed along with Reese and her remarkably witty sense of humor, I cringed at Katrina’s words and actions and the way she portrayed perfectly so many cis women, and I, quite honestly, spent a lot of time angry with Ames and how he thought he could manipulate the situation and those around him. Detransition is a story that will have you taking sides and constantly switching allegiances as the story is slowly unraveled before you.⁣
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The timeline in this book alternates between two periods—years before conception and weeks after conception—allowing readers to slowly familiarize themselves with the main characters and their relationships to each other while also figuring out what is going to be done about the pregnancy. This is punctuated by frequent flashbacks to Reese and Ames’s pre-transition pasts, scenes that absolutely broke my heart. Torrey is impeccably talented at writing the emotions in these scenes; Ames, pure in a way that only a child can be, desiring to come up with an excuse to wear a bra, and feeling utter humiliation when getting fitted for a filled one and is interrupted by cis women walking into the store.
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This book is exceptional and deserving of the wide acclaim that I'm sure is to come. I would LOVE to see it optioned as a limited series and I truly hope you all read it.

There were times while reading Detransition, Baby that I felt that I was not the intended audience for this book, and that's ok. I don't think Torrey Peters meant for this to be written for a cis white gay man. I mean, she dedicates her novel to divorced cis women. But what I can say is that this novel exists in that special space where a book articulates a piece of specific experience so well that you are left with more clarity about that experience. This novel could not exist without its unflinching descriptions of trans women's lives and how identity shapes everything that happens to the characters before and after. There are also many aspects of the queer experience, that while not comparable, were in ways relatable.

As you might expect, there is a great deal of discussion on gender in this book. Torrey writes about gender in such a powerful way, examining both the cruelty and freedom of gender and gender expression, not only with regards to trans people, but also cis people. and it is made very plain throughout the book that this is an analysis of the experiences of white trans people in particular. There is also a great deal of discussion surrounding pregnancy, motherhood and loss of a child, alongside the topic of cishet people co-opting queerness, both of which I found very thought-provoking.

While the writing on these themes was strong my issues with the novel is that, to me, the synopsis suggests that this would be the story of the three of them trying to figure out how to be co-parents and raising this child, but I would say a large majority of the book is dedicated to Reese and Ames’ past as lovers. This is, of course, a very important aspect of the story, but the pregnancy in question almost felt, to me, to take a backseat. This choice of narrative structure, of moving backwards and forwards through time, is one that didn't really work for me. I find there are very few authors who are successfully able to pull this off without their timelines becoming confusing. There was too many instances where a chapter would be set at a specific point in the past, but would then move to other periods both forward and backwards in time, before coming back to the initial point in time where the chapter started. These transitions would often be abrupt and hard to follow. The characters also came off a little one dimensional, where they talked about nothing outside gender politics, and never showed any details of their lives outside of these issues. Not once are we told about their hobbies, or interests.

The first thing this book reminded me of is “Todo sobre mi madre” by Almodovar, not just because they both have transgender characters. Both question and redefine what it means to be a mother. This book was also very melodramatic, and my first thought was “these are very real characters in a fake story”. But maybe that’s a good thing. The story is plausible but not likely, and reminds me of those soap opera romantic comedies revolving around family. As the story went on I felt the interactions between the characters was believable, and the main 3 characters were both flawed and dynamic, but they all literally talked about nothing outside gender politics— that was a little unbelievable. Do any of them have hobbies? Katrina and Ames both have extensive backstories too which make them believable, but Reece’s past is left up to the imagination. It’s not that she isn’t a realistic character (in fact she might be the most relatable) but I would have liked to know more about where she was coming from. If she’s a sort of blank slate so the audience has something to project onto though, then I respect that.
At times the third person narration would launch into a soapbox on gender politics in a way that reminded me of “Nevada” by Imogen Binnie. Detrans Baby is leagues beyond Nevada, which I didn’t really like, but the little treatises felt far too didactic to be believable.
Overall the book was a fast read, and the narrative was very tightly structured, Torrey Peters’ prose as usual was light and enjoyable to read, but I didn’t like this as much as “The Masker” (one of my favorite books of all time, which visits a lot of similar themes) on account of her departure from genre fiction. Still, don’t miss this one!

I loved Detransition Baby so, so much. I really commend it for its incredibly complicated and flawed characters who are treated with a great deal of kindness and compassion by the narrative, and its portrayal of real, uncomfortable conflict that is handled very deftly. These are people who fuck up and hurt each other in a multitude of unpleasant ways and are never demonized for it. There's cheating, outing, deception, and weaponized identity politics, all polarizing topics, but we see these conflicts from multiple perspectives, and feel both the pain of the person hurt and sympathize with the person doing the hurting. Honestly, I wasn't expecting this level of emotional realism from a book with the premise "let's raise a baby with my ex" and I was completely blown away by it.

I think part of the raw honesty of Detransition Baby comes from the number of trans women characters throughout the book. None of these women are expected to represent trans womanhood on their own and I think that freedom allows the characters to be genuinely flawed and imperfect and interesting and good, and for that complexity, they feel very real.

I am also just obsessed with the depiction of motherhood and parenthood as a complicated concept that means something different for everyone, but that with a measure of vulnerability, can be built and shared together. This is also one of the most fundamental places where characters' wants and needs conflict against each other and I think the book does a great job of balancing those without saying any one character is fully right or fully wrong. I was particularly struck by Reese's deep yearning for motherhood vs. Katrina's relief at her first miscarriage vs. Ames's distinction between fatherhood and parenthood. There aren't neat, easy answers to the conflicts that come up in their attempts to remake for themselves what family looks like, but I was moved by their attempts to build a functional, livable life without sacrificing happiness for conformity.

For those hesitant because of the entire topic of detransition, I thought the book handled it really well. Detransition is explored without delegitimizing transness in part because Detransition Baby balances one character detransitioning against dozens of other trans women in the book who don't. The book paints Amy's life as a trans woman not as a mistake, and the decision to detransition instead as more akin to going back into the closet, for all the reasons that people do: fear, exhaustion, and how genuinely hard it is to be queer sometimes. Detransition Baby makes it very clear that Amy/Ames is, beneath "living as a man," still a trans woman. To paraphrase, being trans isn't something you stop being.

My major gripes with the book were largely technical. There could have been a much tighter edit, both for simple spelling/continuity mistakes and overall construction-wise. That being said, I don't think those stood in the way of my enjoyment or love for the book.

Wow, what a book! This novel alternates perspectives between two characters - Reese, a trans woman, and Ames, Reese's ex, who used to be trans woman Amy but then de-transitioned back to being man. When the woman Ames is sleeping with, Katrina, accidentally becomes pregnant, Ames is not sure he can see himself as a father, and suggests bringing in Reese, who has always wanted to be a mother. The book then both proceeds from there, along with scenes set in Reese and Amy/Ames' past. I'm a cis gender woman, and while I have read a few novels about trans kids/teens, I don't think I've ever read a book from the perspective of a trans adult, and didn't even know there was such a thing as detransitioning. So the book was very different and eye-opening for me, though sometimes uncomfortable, with an eye opening #ownvoices account of both the unique struggles of being trans along with all the common emotional struggles anyone can go through. The writing was just so sharp and good, really bringing the characters to life, and I couldn't put it down. Think Curtis Sittenfeld/Taffy Brodesser Akner's "Fleishman Is In Trouble," but with a trans spin. 4.5 stars.

This novel is fantastically layered. There are so many different facets of the story and characters to unpack. Every aspect of womanhood is held under a microscope; queerness and parenting are examined with care. I've never read anything like this and I'll continue to read anything Peters writes.

At it's heart, this story is a rom-com. An intersectional nontraditional family rom-com. I wish the cover were a bit more cutesy to draw in those readers and maybe educate them a bit and help expand the genre. But, I loved following the characters in both the present and the past timelines as they learned about themselves and each other. Gender identity is incredibly unique and personal and this book felt that way. There was so much going on throughout the book with each of the characters and the author did a wonderful job of leading the reader through the maze. I will admit a bit of disappointment with the ending, but it isn't my place to put requirements on others' experiences, right?

This gorgeous, messy, almost-perfect novel by author Torrey Peters begs us, or at least me, to answer that age old question, why do you read? I read to visit other places and people and to know them as intimately as though I were them, at least for the span of time I spend with them. And then, I hope to also learn something new about myself and the world I inhabit, as a result of my visit within the context of the book. Perhaps that is too idealistic or even reductionist, in terms of outcomes for reading. But, there it is, my goals have remained oddly static since I started reading. I hope to grow. This is a book that offers that possibility in so many ways: different paths and measures of being female, mothering, sistering, friending, loving and fighting all compete for attention in a book that tells a complicated tale about three main characters struggling to find some notion of family. The title is sheer genius. So, go read this book and marvel at how well Peters created it. She is worth following. I received my copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

This is a beautifully written, heartfelt and original book whose characters really got into my heart. I recommend it to absolutely everyone, but especially to LGBTQ folks and people who love LGBTQ folks, or to anyone who wants to be educated and enlightened while also laughing a lot.

The book follows Ames, a person genetically assigned male at birth, who transitions to female and then back to male again - hence the title, “Detransition, Baby.” This is a story I’ve never seen told before in fiction and it is told here beautifully with so many layers of complexity and experience that I had never considered. I would never have guessed, for example, the complexity and heartbreak of some of the reasons Ames had for transitioning back. It’s also the story of Reese, a trans woman who was a funny, caring and beautiful character who I completely fell in love with.

This is not always an easy read, dealing with important issues like suicide, abuse of trans people especially women, matters of the heart, and what it means to be a family. But even as you are having your heart broken over these characters, you are laughing, and identifying with the, throughout.

This is an entertaining, lovely, and I,portent book. It will not be for everyone, but it should be.

Thank you to Random House, Torrey Peters and NetGalley for this beautiful and funny book. 4.5 stars rounded up for beautiful writing and pure heart.

Once you settle in, this tale of Reece and Ames is an eye opener. It's funny yes, but it's also smart and thought provoking. These two have had a long relationship moving through their gender transitions and now they are dealing with parenthood, among other things. How they cope, how they expand their horizons, how they come to be is at the root of this well written novel. I found it provided me insight into things I'd not previously considered about those who are trans. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. Recommend for a very good read.

✨MINI REVIEW✨ [ @oneworldbooks #partner ]
Reese almost had it all: a loving relationship with Amy, an apartment in New York City, a job she didn't hate. But then her girlfriend detransitioned and became Ames, and everything fell apart. When Ames's boss and lover, Katrina, reveals that she's pregnant with his baby, Ames wonders if this is the chance he's been waiting for. Could the three of them form some kind of unconventional family? (via Goodreads) 📚
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📚 This book is messy, beautiful and thoughtful. It's a deep exploration of the thousands of tiny things that add up to make gender, and what happens when your understanding of those building blocks shifts.
📚 It really showcases how fluid gender and sexuality are and the joy that can bring, but doesn't shy away from exactly how mentally and physically hard it can be to exist publicly as a trans person.
📚 I honestly can't think of one aspect of the idea of womanhood or the margins of queerness this book doesn't touch on - it has so much packed in and yet it remains compellingly readable.
📚 Also, it covers all this heavy, complicated stuff and is still very funny!
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📚 I am almost certain DETRANSITION, BABY will be polarizing. On the surface, before reading it, it seems to be endorsing the idea of detransitioning and that transness is a choice - much like the idea of being an ex-gay. Keep in mind that I am a cis person, but I don't think it's doing that at all. The central tension of Ames' story is that he detransitioned but can never not be trans, even if it doesn't show outwardly. Please read it if you're in a place to do so - it's a wonderfully nuanced portrait of the complexity of trans life.
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Content warnings: biphobia, body shaming, child abuse, deadnaming, death, domestic abuse, drug use, emotional abuse, grief, hate crime, homophobia, infertility, infidelity, miscarriage , misogyny, physical abuse, self harm, sexism, sexual content, sexual violence, suicidal thoughts, suicide, toxic relationship, transphobia, and violence.

Thank you Random House Publishing Group and Net Galley for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review. Raw & radiant, Detransition, Baby will be the talk of the town next year. Torrey Peters has spelled the tea for all the cis to see and it is uncomfortable and liberatory all at once. It's so important for conversations about motherhood and reproductive justice to be nuanced and center trans people. This book is as timely difficult as it is difficult and it will reward your full attention.

I was immediately interested in this book because it portrays detransitioning, which I rarely see discussed. I am not trans and the extent of my trans knowledge comes from film/tv and youtubers, so it was eye-opening to look at detransitioning in an intimate way through this novel.

Detransition, Baby follows three women: two transgender (Reese and Amy) and one cisgender (Katrina). Amy detransitions, becoming Ames, and goes from dating Reese to dating Katrina. Their lives are intertwined when Katrina becomes pregnant and Ames suggests involving Reese in the parenting. Through this unconventional family model that is proposed, the book explores motherhood in a unique way and how motherhood can affect your identity as a trans woman. The characters are very open in how they reflect about their desires - sexual desires and other life ideals. These wants are at odds with expectations for progressive women and healthy relationships, and I think the way these vulnerable, flawed women were written was amazing.

With these honest perspectives, also come transphobic situations. Although this book was emotionally heavy for me at times, the book's mood steers away from depressing tragedy. Instead, it focuses on the everyday lives of these characters. Less "Boys Don't Cry" and more "Tangerine" is the best way my cis ass can describe it. I learned a lot from spending time with these characters and I was really struck with how different their lives and dispositions were from anything I've read. I'm grateful for this book's existence and very excited about its upcoming release! 🥰✨

Like nothing I’ve ever read- in a very good way. This is an extremely exciting look into a world I don’t know a ton about but was thrilled to learn about, chapter by chapter.

Hell yeah, sending 2020 out with a bang. Thanks to Netgalley for an advance copy of this book, which I was super excited to read.

It would be difficult to list out every topic addressed here, and plenty of critical analyses will do that anyway so whatever. What I can say is that Detransition, Baby exists in that special space where a book articulates a piece of specific experience so well that you are left with both more clarity about the experience and that universal set of book feelings that transcends any one life. This book could not exist without its unflinching descriptions of trans women's lives and how identity shapes everything that happens to the characters before and after. But it's also about being alive, being hurt, and being needed, and how stupidly complex those things are, and no matter how few experiences you share with Reese or Ames or Katrina, those feelings at the heart of it are easy to access.

I hope the buzz and wide potential audience of this book touches those who need it the most. I hope someone who never expected to have their own experience represented in something tagged not "lgbtq+" but (deservedly!) "literary fiction" is wrapped up and comforted by the messy, painful kinship that this book describes so adeptly. I hope someone who picked up this book just because it was acclaimed literary fiction found something there that they didn't know they needed.

(SPOILER) It was perfect to end the book on a note of ambiguity.

Imagine, thinking you are going to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower and taste delicious macaron’s and ending up in Papua New Guinea in a tribe that you had never heard of. That is how it felt reading this book. I had no idea what it was about when I opened it, and I was surprised and delighted when finding out that I was reading a book about the white trans culture. I apologize in advance if I say anything incorrectly, but this is a whole new world for me!

Torrey Peters is a magnificent writer. She is honest and funny and boy does she know how to craft an engaging story. I don’t think that I, a cis white woman, was her target audience and I often had to look up words and phrases and theories to keep up. But I learned so much and my eyes were pried wide open. I don’t know if this book is for everyone, but I really appreciated hearing the variety of trans voices, their fantasies and insecurities, their traumas and their triumphs. The characters of Reese and Ames will stay with me for a very long time.

I hesitate to say too much, as I hope other readers will be open minded and transported in the way that I was. I hope there is another novel on the way – perhaps continuing with Reese, Ames and Katrina’s journey. In the meantime, I’m so glad that I took that unintentional detour and I think I loved it even more than a trip Paris!

My thanks to NetGalley for an Advanced Readers Copy of this book. All opinions are my own and not biased in any way.

This book sets out to cover a LOT of ground storywise - and I think it mostly does a good job of that. Maybe it feels a little overstuffed at times, like the author just had so much she wanted to accomplish with this story (which she did!), so towards the end it did feel kind of unfocused. But so much here is thoughtful and funny and entertaining, and overall I had a good time. Slightest of spoilers but there is a very minor Werner Herzog bedbug infestation subplot that I think warrants at least 100 pages as its own standalone novella. Also not that it matters but the color scheme on this cover is.........sublime.

Detransition, Baby by Torrey Peters
★★★★☆

Thank you to Netgalley, Random House, and One World for providing me with a digital arc in exchange for an honest review.

“Many people think a trans woman’s deepest desire is to live in her true gender, but actually it’s to always stand in good lighting.”

Detransition, Baby novel that gives readers a lot to chew on. It’s messy in good ways and bad. It’s characters are complicated and frustrating. And it’s philosophies are going to challenge what most non-trans readers have been taught about being “a good ally.” Peters has written a trans novel with a truly unique and valuable perspective. Where this is going to fall short for a lot of people is that it is just a single trans narrative and not meant to be a stand in for the trans experience as a whole. Which is the unfortunate task that is usually placed upon works coming from marginalized communities. They are expected to be for everyone, and Detransition, Baby is absolutely not. And when I say it’s not for everyone, I mean that I was a full 60% into the book before I decided it was actually for me.

This is not a plot heavy book. If you’ve read the cover copy, you know exactly what is going on. It can basically be summed up as the set up for a joke. “Two transsexuals and a pregnant woman walk into an OBGYN office.…” Basically, three very different people agree to raise a baby together. And this is the least interesting thing about Detransition, Baby. I went into this book expecting a more straight-forward exploration of people navigating a non-traditional family structure ala Kevil Wilson’s Perfect Little World. This is not that. The plot is something that happens in the background. What actually makes this novel interesting is the cast of characters Peters has created as well as the way it engages with and challenges modern trans discourse.

The main cast of the novel is made up of three of the most frustrating human beings imaginable. Ames/Amy is a detransitioned, or “former,” trans woman. And, in a way, this is their* story. The timeline is nonlinear, jumping between past and present with each chapter identified by its position in time before and after the conception of the titular “baby.” And a lot of the flashbacks revolve around Ames/Amy and their transition in relation to other characters. And, despite how his actions are what primarily drives the plot, his character feels the least fleshed out of the three. I go back and forth on whether or not I think this was an intentional decision. Given the unstable nature of their identity, it makes sense that most of what we learn about this character, internally, comes from the perspective of those around them. Our second character is Katrina, Ames’ boss and sexual partner. We learn a little about Katrina’s history, like her divorce and miscarriage that inform a lot of her decisions throughout the story. But, for the most part, Katrina’s position in the story seems to be a (mostly) heterosexual who engages with and learns about queerness. She brings the outsider perspective to a very insider novel. Finally, Reese. Reese is a trans woman, Amy’s ex-girlfriend, and a little bit of a mess of a person. We learn the most about Reese both internally and as she is perceived by others. This is a character that I think a lot of people, particularly people who only engage with queerness through the lens of glossy internet discourse are going to have a difficult time wrapping their heads around. Personally, I found her fascinating and at the same time infuriating. Of the three, Reese is the most “real.” Reese is a person I know and have interacted with.

What the book does best is shoving these three characters together and pulling them apart in new and interesting ways. They all do appalling things to one another and to themselves throughout their attempt to put together something resembling a family unit.

Where Peters is either going to win you over or lose you completely is in the engagement with how trans lives are perceived by people outside of the community. This is not a book that speaks to a monolithic trans experience--nor is it trying to be. The text is, more than once, careful to point out that this is a story told from the perspective of white trans women living in New York City with access to a trans community. Peters is not attempting to speak for trans women of color, rural and isolated trans people, non-binary trans people, trans men, etc. But what it does, to interesting effect, is try to challenge the perception of trans people held by those outside of the community.

Amy and Reese have two very different perspectives about what it means to be trans and what it means to exist in the trans community. The structure of the conversation around transness is almost divided into three stages. The perception of transness internally, the perception of transness within the trans community, and the perception of transness in the world at large. Reese has a stronger sense of self, and is fairly confident in her position within the community. Her challenge is her transness as a construct in the larger world. Amy, on the other hand, struggles with her ever shifting identity as well as her position within her community. “To say that Amy had never before had sex as a woman was the kind fo thing that trans activists would take issue with. Feel free to peruse the Tumblr-Twitter industrial complex for all the ways that ‘trans women have always been women’--even before they transitioned. But for Amy it was the first time she saw herself fucking as a woman without laying a psychic veil over whatever sexual scene was occurring; the first time it just was rather than something that, with effort, she could manage to see.” This speaks to the impossibility of being a trans person when your perception of yourself doesn’t line up with what both other trans-people and cis people expect of you.

I could pull another forty quotes that I have highlighted that address different aspects of trans womanhood and how the world perceives and interacts with it. I love any novel that can turn what should be a simple book review into a 50 page dissertation and there is so much to unpack here that I definitely see myself returning to this text again in the future. Overall, I think that even though this book falls flat as a story, it succeeds as a character study and a brilliant challenge to “trans discourse” that is largely dominated by cis people telling other cis people the rules of how to interact with and talk about trans people. Torrey Peters is an author I look forward to reading more from in the future.

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*I refer to Ames/Amy as their when speaking about them generally, but he/her when discussing how they are identified at any given point in the text--pronouns are messy sometimes, ya’ll.