An exceptionally honest account of understanding the love you have for your child despite your own inner turmoil

This is a very informative book through the eyes of a mother learning to accept her LGBTQ child. I think it could really be of value for others who have the same circumstances. To be honest, I think it would be good for anyone to read. It is well written. Good plot, great art and character development. I recommend this book. I received Transition from the publisher and Netgalley. Thank you for allowing me to give my unbiased review.

one of the best books I've read in a way in terms of LGBT literature!
it's such a raw testimony about a parents' journey into learning and seeing the world in different ways and it's so refreshing to see the parents side, for better or worse, and actually have it have a happy ending.

Advanced review copy provided by publisher

This is an educational story for the parents and families of transgender individuals. This graphic novel is about a mother who learns her 19 year old is a transgender man; she thinks she is an accepting person but finds that she struggles to accept him for who he is.

What I liked:
- This could be a good resource for families who are finding they aren't as accepting as they should be.
- Has some good history of transness, emphasis that this isn't a new thing.
- The focus on therapy is great.
- The mom's lists of reminders are ones that I've suggested to other people trying to be better about names and pronouns: Use the right name and pronouns even when he isn't around, think of him with the right name and pronouns, using the right name and pronouns as a group at family gatherings helps everybody use the right ones. Do everything you can, in your own time, to make saying the new name feel natural, until it is.
- The younger kids in the book were all on board having a brother and switched names instantly. So real.

Things I didn't love:
- Deadnaming and using the wrong pronouns for over half the book. It had me questioning if they were even going to accept this poor kid.
- This story had such a huge focus on how terrible this is for the mother. Grieving for the 'son / daughter' you 'lost' and grieving for the super important name you chose is pretty small compared to the grief of your kid thinking you hate them and don't accept them. It's extremely small compared to grieving for your entire kid, which could be a very real consequence.
- I think these things may have been done to make it more relatable for parents who are going through the same thing, but it isn't the best message.

I really liked the premise for this book, but didn't like it quite as much as I hoped I would. I think I had trouble connecting to the story. I am not a mother, and I often struggled with her viewpoint, and instead felt frustrated with her lack of understanding with her trans son, Alex. I would have rather had his viewpoint. I also felt like it leaned too heavily on educating about the gender spectrum, specifically with science, and quoting other sources about trans rights, when I thought I was getting more of a personal narrative.

While this book wasn't what I was looking for, this would be great for struggling parents who want to learn more about their trans children.

Wow, this book proved to be an insightful exploration into the world of the transgender community and the complexity of identity.

The narrative revolves around Alex, a transgender man whose transition comes as a shock to his mother, Anne. From Anne's perspective, Alex's lack of prior indications perplexes and concerns her, leaving her feeling trapped and bewildered.

The book not only delves into the intricacies of the transition process for the individual, but also highlights the challenging journey of a mother struggling to comprehend and support her beloved son, ultimately leading her to embark on her own transformative path.

I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.

I understand it’s about an imperfect mother of a trans kid showing their progress… but it was filled with misgendering. Which yeah, that’s how she was thinking at the time, but idk, I didn’t like that nor how it wasn’t really said to be bad even then. There were also some wordings that were a tad bit off. Not wrong or offensive, but not as expansive and inclusive as they should’ve been. This is a translated work, and originally from a different country than I am, so that makes since.

The thing is, I don’t understand who this is meant for. Why focus on a cis persons struggles with someone else’s identity? It’s just odd. Own voices stories should always be the focus.

Transition is an informative graphic novel about a mother coming to terms with the coming out of her transgender son. Written from the mother's point of view, it shows the journey as she learns to accept her son for who he truly is. It is both an interesting read as well as being informative about the proper terms to use in the LBGTQ+ community. I greatly enjoyed both the illustrations and the story.

In Transitions we get the perspective of a mother of a transgender son, as she tries to come to terms with her son’s choice and understand him more. Talking about biology, and seeing a doctor, we get to see what a safe space is., and more.

Although, I believe the mother was just trying to understand her son better, she kept misgendering him and talking about him as by his deadname. And yes, it was to show her progress from then and now, it was quite frustrating and not at all pleasant to read. It also overshadowed the story as a whole when the mother could not respect her kid’s chosen gender. As he said, ”I am a serious, thoughtful person. I am an adult. (…) I’m doing fine. I am not going to change my mind.”

I went into this book believing I would find a lot about trans-pride and LGBT+ support, but there was a lot of transphobia in it. E.g.: ”It’s a phase!”

But then the mom goes to a therapy session with Alex’s therapist, and she tells the mom: ”Trans identity is not an illness. (…) You fear that Alex will be marginalized, but the first and foremost marginalization is family rejection. That is in your hands.”

…My thoughts are: it was an okay read, but it will be triggering to LGBT+ people who have experienced transphobia/misgendering/deadnamed. As mentioned, I thought this would be a great book about trans and LGBT+ themes (which we desperately need more of!). I don’t know where I want this review to go. It was okay-ish, I guess.

Happy reading!♥️

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me an advanced digital copy of this book! I really enjoyed reading this, I have been trying to incorporate more translated works into my reading list. Being bisexual, it was very interesting to see this journey through the eyes of a parent that wasn't accepting at first. I went through something similar with my own parents when I came out, so it definitely spoke to me a lot. I would recommend this book to people that are struggling with the transition of a loved one. The author's journey from disbelief to acceptance would definitely be eye opening for those individuals.

I found this book extremely touching. It's rare to find such a testimony from a family member of a person who has transitioned, and I found this perspective very interesting. I appreciated the author's honesty: she doesn't pretend to have done everything right. She opens up about her failures, her regrets, the things she should have done differently. I think this book could potentially help parents, grandparents, or just relatives who don't know how to deal with this change.
Some of the writing choices bothered me a little though: the use of her child's deadname (perhaps to better illustrate her points?), and the writing of certain passages that I found a little confusing.

This is a touching book about a mother's journey to accept her trans son. Unfortunately, I don't think it goes deep enough. A parent in the same situation as the mother at the start of the book might feel less alone in reading it, but if like the mother they're wondering why this is happening, I don't feel they'll have a better understanding by the end of the book. I also find the choice of deadnaming Alex for much of the book questionable. I understand that it reflects the mother's journey, and if it were only in her thoughts and dialogue, it would make sense, but why also do it in the notes and narration?

Well, look at that beautiful simple cover and tell me it doesn't make you curious about the graphic novel.

This is a novel about a person who is just changing their perception of gender because of how they feel as they grow up. It's actually interesting and eye opening to know how such conversations can go in a common household.
This graphic novel was very informative, it showed the graphic, honest and raw emotions of a person who is just growing a growth mindset about the Trans community. The mother of the trans person was really in a huge dilemma about her daughter/son's identity and I was very impressed with how the story evolved.

The art and the colours were good but I think at certain parts the writing could have been a little less and the art could be more. The book and podcast recommendations at the end were very good. Thank you netgalley for the ARC.

I think this might be a good conversation starter for parents who have trouble sorting through their emotions when their child comes out to them. Transitions features very evocative illustrations and provides many scientific sources concerning sex and gender from various disciplines. Anne is a biologist and questions the bias informing seemingly "objective" science, which is great. I do think that the narrative wasn't perfectly structured and the inclusion of academic material especially sometimes disrupted the reading flow. Some scene transitions felt a little "jump-y" and I had to do a double take once or twice cause I wasn't sure if I had missed something. Even though I think Transitions is a great potential resource, I'm giving it 3 stars because its overall pacing and structure was a little too wonky for my taste.

Now, I want to address some of the criticisms I saw in a substantial number of reviews. Many people complained about Anne misgendering and deadnaming her son, that Anne should just "get it together already". While I agree that purposefully misgendering and deadnaming anyone shouldn't be condoned, we see a mother who considers herself open-minded experiencing feelings of anxiety and grief that are inexplicable to her. She's not hateful, but goes through a transition herself, in which she examines her own biases and comes out a passionate ally on the other side. It seems understandable to me that she still calls Alex by his old name, simply out of habit, not to deny his identity.
Other reviews complained that Alex was only a footnote in the narrative, which is completely baffling to me. Transitions is a story from the perspective of a trans child's parent, and that is valid. In my opinion, it's great that parents have a graphic novel they can see themselves in, that can help them on their journey by educating them and showing them that communication is KEY. Anne is not presented as if she handles the situation perfectly and I think parents of trans kids seeing her missteps and reflections can benefit them and, in turn, trans kids.

Even though it's by no means a perfect narrative, I urge parents - especially those who find themselves confused by their child's choice - to read Transitions. I'm sure it'll help broaden their horizons.

- ARC provided by NetGalley -

Omg, where do I begin. This book was exactly what I needed to understand more about the trans community and identity as itself. This book talks about the story of Alex, a trans man that, his transition came as an iced bucket for his mother Anne. On her point of view, Alex never gave signs of this and she’s worried, trapped and doesn’t understand it at all. This book, doesn’t only presents what the transition is for the person, this book shows us the process of a mother that doesn’t understand, that is confused but loves her son so much and needs to deconstruct herself and start her own transition to support her son. I think this book explains every aspect of the trans community in an amazing way, it’s informative, thoughtful and really emotional. I really recommend this cause it’s a must for all the queer and ally’s.

Thank you to Netgalley, the publisher of IDW Publishing, and the author Elodie Durand for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. This graphic novel is real as the title refers not only to Alex's transition from his assigned gender but the transition between parents and children and the mother's understanding of their child's gender. We also see a universal transition from childhood to a young adult as Alex becomes independent from his mother. We see the raw realness of both characters at their lowest and highest moments. We see that it takes a lot to overcome but they both get better over time.

**Disclaimer: I recieved a free eARC of this through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.  Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for this opportunity.  This was an interesting memoir, which also contained lots of extra educational information.  It was interesting to read about coming out from the parents' perspective, but it was still a little hard to read in places.  I appreciated the statistical data included between sections of the journal.  It helped to root everything.

Transitions is a beautifully crated story of a parent dealing with their child transitioning. The beauty is not in initial acceptance, but the growth, and the arc of both characters. They never give up on each other. We get to see how both feel as they transition into a new relationship.

As a grandmother who admittedly is still finding this whole new world puzzling, I picked this book to read so that I could gain more perspective. I liked seeing how the parent and child related to each other and how a mother learns and changes and loves.

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. Anything that helps us all understand each other better is a blessing in my book.

This book would probably be good for people, like the author, new to transgender identity but I did find some of the author’s choices confusing such as using her child’s old pronouns and deadname throughout most of the book while by the end of it claiming to be accepting. I liked the art style and the author’s different full page spreads.