It was so nice to have a followup title to Super Late Bloomer. Julia Kaye has been doing fantastic work (I check out her Twitter occasionally) and her comics in Super Late Bloomer were eye opening. It is great that she is getting shelf space for her comics and they are much needed. My Life in Transition was a nice check-in on her journey to being her true self and what has happened since Super Late Bloomer. I enjoyed it and I hope we see more Super Late Bloomer comics or other stories by Kaye.

I would like to thank the publisher and netgalley for providing me a free copy in exchange for an honest review.

Julia Kaye shares an intimate memoir of her life in transition in the form of a comic. She portrays her struggles in such an honest way, that even though I couldn't relate, I could surely appreciate.. I haven't read her previous work "Super Late Bloomer", but I will be checking it for sure!!

This book is a lovely depiction of what Julia Kaye's life is like, and her experiences as a trans woman. Highly recommend this read!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

My Life in Transition is not just about the life of a woman in transition, but a story of what her life has been after she made the hard choice to come out, to herself, her friends, her family and be her true self. This story is about all the changes her life has begun t go through above and beyond the physical. She boldly shows the struggles to fit in and try to adopt society's version of feminine beauty as she fights bouts of dysphoria and misgendering.
I hadn’t read the 1st part of her story, but this volume stands up well on its own.

I may not have a 100% understanding of her struggle but as a Lesbian, I can understand the alienation from family and friends. I have been called sir, because of the way I dress, and yes it pisses me off every time.
Regardless of how you identify, which pronouns you prefer, you can recognize yourself in Julia’s growth as a woman.

I received this uncorrected proof free from Andrew McNeil’s Publishing and NetGalley in exchange for my honest and unbiased opinion

Read more graphic novel reviews at www.graphiclibrary.org.

My Life in Transition is a second anthology of Kaye’s web comic, Up and Out, chronicling her life as a transgender woman. Kaye publishes nearly one three-panel comic a day, and this collection is roughly six months of her life. In it, Kaye explores dating as a trans woman, both men and women, and healing after a long-term relationship ends. Kaye also shows instances of people misgendering her, and the anxiety and dysmorphia that often follows. Kaye also navigates friendships and builds personal boundaries with friends, romantic partners, and work. Kaye also struggles with her bio family who is not supportive and exhibits transphobia. A friend suggests a chosen family - building a family of people who are supportive and positive influences. Kaye builds a chosen family of other trans individuals and friends who see Kate for who she is.

Kaye’s comics are honest and authentic. This collection is a stark look into the journey of a trans person, especially after surgeries and hormones have had a chance to work, and often a time we don’t see very often portrayed or discussed in media. Usually, trans stories end with the decision to have surgery or start hormone therapy, but Kaye demonstrates that the daily struggles and journey of personal growth is far from over at that point. The three-panel stories are easy to digest but can pack a punch depending on the type of day Kaye had. They are loosely connected, so this format might be jarring for readers who are used to comics as a longer format, but this style harks back to comic strips and their collection into books.

There is one strip that includes nakedness, but the portrayal is that of rebirth, not anything sexual.

Sara’s Rating: 9/10
Suitability Level: Grades 10-Adult

This book is an in-depth exploration of Kaya’s emotional experiences while transitioning. Kaya covers her heartbreaks after failed relationships, her struggles with dysphoria, and her joy when bonding with her friends. The problem is that this book is a collection of daily comic strips. A lot of comic strips, including this one, are pretty repetitive in nature. While this might not create an issue when reading them on a daily or weekly basis, reading them all at once was really, really boring. Learning about her experiences was interesting, but watching her struggle with the same experiences over and over lost the appeal fairly quickly. The artwork is simple and cute.

I was so happy to see more of Julia Kaye's autobiographical comics were being published in book form. She has such a way with getting so much across in three panels. This latest collection covers 6 months of her life; we see her her growth over those months in such a poignant, heartfelt way. Highly recommended. (And I hope there's more coming!)

This is a perfect sequel to the first book! Julia Kaye continues telling her story of transitioning to the person who she is meant to be. It's all about growth. Although not everyone has been through the exact same struggles as Kaye, most readers will be able to relate to the her painfully human realities.

My Life in Transition is the follow-up to Super Late Bloomer: My Early Days in Transition, which documented the author's decision to transition genders. Both pictures are a sort of diary in comics, with one comic per day, showing glimpses into Kaye's life and experiences. In My Life in Transition we get a look at 6 months in Kaye's life as she lives as a female and anxiously awaits getting bottom surgery. She stresses about being misgendered, deals with her own feelings of depression and dysmorphia, and also the everyday dilemmas of interpersonal relationships.

This is an incredible work. With a lot of LGBTQ+ literature, the focus is on the actual transition or coming out phase, but in this work Julia speaks candidly about what happens after a lot of the 'drama' (for lack of a better term) makes way for day to day life. By using daily comics, you walk in her shoes as she navigates the ups and downs of entering a society where just living your own truth can be fraught with unexpended landmines. I found the journey incredibly relatable, and highly recommend this work to live on your bookshelf!

I enjoyed the original Super Late Bloomer book by Julia Kaye about her life when she first came out as trans, so I already knew I would like this one too. I ended up enjoying it even more than the first book. The comic strips work as a diary with snapshots of her life, both ups and downs. It's a very personal and honest look at her life through new relationships, break-ups, friendships, gender dysphoria and gender euphoria. I highly recommend reading anything by Kaye, but especially this book.

I wasn't familiar with Julia's other collection Super Late Bloomer and that context isn't needed for reading this, although I'm sure it would add. This collection of comic strips covers her life for about six months. There's an introduction that sets the story for the reader and a really nice epilogue as well.

Each comic strip is short and shows just one bit of Julia's life during that day. The reader gets to watch Julia go through a breakup, fluctuate different relationships with friends and family, and just living life as a 30 year old trans woman. The snapshot format of this book is so interesting to see one individual's life day-to-day.

I give this book a 5/5. I love this format. Although I read it all in one sitting, I think this would be a great book to just read one page (or a few pages) a day.

An excellent graphic novel that explores the difficult transition that individuals go through for gender confirmation surgery. Highly recommended.

Free ARC from Netgalley.

My Life in Transition is the second graphic novel memoir from Julia. This one is about her life after her sex correction and how this affects her dating life and relationships.

I felt it was rather repetitive with trying and trying and trying again at dating. And nothing really happening. But, that's life I guess.

A good second graphic novel, and interesting to read about this topic (and important!).

Graphic novels and comics aren't usually my cup of tea, but I couldn't resist this one, and I'm glad I didn't. I love everything about it. Julia Kaye has a really impressive way of showing nuance in a series of 3-panel cartoon strips; she doesn't even need words to make you feel things. I've not read the first one, but even without that context I really appreciated how this book covered her life after she was already several years into her transition; it showed a different side to the transition narrative we usually get, in which an individual's transition is often portrayed as the natural conclusion to their life's greatest journey, and so on and so forth. Even though her gender is a huge part of her identity, Julia's life isn't magically perfect just because she's overcome that initial hurdle and has reached a point at which she's living happily as a trans woman and is almost always gendered as female. She still has to get through breakups, men being men, work pressures, friendships, the works. It made her feel a lot more authentic and three-dimensional as a protagonist and author.

That said, she also very clearly shows how her transition will always be a tangible part of her life through the hardship of misgendering, the trauma of her own family rejecting her, the constant worries about whether she's performing femininity 'enough' or 'correctly'. I think these were my favourite panels, when Julia writes (?) about how, as a trans woman, the pressure to perform a certain type of femininity in order to almost justify being trans can be a roadblock to authenticity. She feels a constant guilt over not doing enough (her phrase, not mine) to avoid misgendering, whilst being objectively aware that it's absolutely not her fault at all, and that the general gendered aspects of the society she lives in are to blame. It was an interesting aspect that, as a cis woman, I've never had to consider; I can wear trousers or a baggy jumper without getting misgendered, for example, and it was illuminating to be forced to confront the inherent privilege of that.

Literally the only thing I would nitpick over is that it only covered 6 months of her life and I would have liked to live alongside her longer. That's it. Oh, and sometimes the art style made people difficult to differentiate, particular her first girlfriend and her therapist. They looked very similar and it could be jarring. Still, there are limits to black and white cartoons, so that's really more of an issue of medium for me than anything else.

Now I have to pick up the first one...

This is the first thing by Kaye that I have read and I loved it! As someone who is only out to a couple family members (and barely out to myself) this gave me immense hope that I will one day love and care for myself, I will grow into myself just as Julia has done.

These short comics are able to portray these raw emotions so wonderfully and fully, this really is a fantastic book Julia was able to show her story so well covering transness, heartbreak, family trouble and grief. i honestly applaud Julia for releasing this and telling her story.

(Thank you NetGalley for the ARC. This is my honest review!)

I'm in tears at the moment from reading this beautiful comic collection.

I related a lot to Julia's struggles with moving on from a long term relationship that wasn't the healthiest, and yet still misses it... Girl, same.

It hurts.

Julia explores grief and family acceptance and transness in such a raw, emotional way. I'm thankful she has decided to share her life with us in comic form. <3

I LOVE Julia’s first book and this one is just as great. The illustrations are so clean and simple but evoke a lot of emotion and really reflect the writing. Very honest, heartfelt story with many moments that are relatable to anyone - trans or not - issues such as breakups, family problems, first dates, friendships, insecurities and so on.

I wish the panels were longer but there was something of a time constraint. Each three part panel was done once a day for six months. As short as the panels are though, they give a lot of information.

I hope to see more of Kaye’s soon!!

<i>Thanks to NetGalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.</i>

This book fits quite well with the Andrews McMeel Publishing brand of comics, along with work by Sarah Andersen, Cassandra Calin or Debbie Tung. In fact, I think people who love Rupi Kaur will probably enjoy this comic.

The art is slightly simpler than other than that of Calin or Andersen, maybe more similar to that of Tung. This is not much of a problem in itself, however, the drawings aren't very expressive either, so they don't communicate anything by themselves: everything must be made explicit by the narration. This contrasts with the cartoons in Cat's Café, where you barely need words to tell the story. The competing narration by the author and dialogue makes the reading experience muddy: it's like hearing two people talk at the same time, about the same thing, in different ways, and trying to pay attention to both. If the drawings were more expressive, the dialogue would be unnecessary and the narration would suffice; but even if they aren't, it would've been better to just write the author's thoughts (as she does) and skip the dialogues, which are banal anyway.

All of this would have made this comic slightly below average, but not bad. The real problem is the story itself. This is basically a look at one year in the author's life, but the author lacks any self-awareness. It's hard to write something interesting or compelling in that situation. She repeats the same Instagram-esque lines, whines about everything, complains about everyone, shows no appreciation of anyone, isn't interested in anyone's life. There's a parade of characters behind her, most of them unnamed, that exist simply to tell her "You're the best!" Not one of them has interests or lives of their own beyond fawning over her. She doesn't seem to support anyone around her, even though she demands constant attention from everyone.

It reads as an immature 14 year old, not a woman in her 30s who is capable of self-reflection. That doesn't make for good reading.

I received a digital ARC (advanced reader copy) in exchange for a honest review.

My Life in Transition is Kaye's story of continuing transition and is chronologically after Super Late Bloomer. I did not read Super Late Bloomer but I am a long time fan of Up and Out. The book was very evocative and showed Kaye's relationships, family conflict, and moving on with life. It was bitter sweet; heartwarming, heartbreaking, and real. The book was born from Kaye's personal project of creating a comic every day for six months.

The formatting was the main issue I had with this book. Each page has a single 3 panel comic so the book is very short while each page could easily fit 2 comics (to save paper for printed copies). Even though this started as a personal project, there seems to be little editing afterwards and doesn't have a professional feel. Some of the plot lines were also difficult to follow and there were also a couple comics where parts of the dialogue was blacked out (I'm assuming it's someone's name) so it was difficult to understand those parts of the story. I really like the idea behind this book but the overall result is really unpolished. Also, the author is posting all the comics on Instagram so I can't really recommend this book to friends.