Trans-Sister Radio
A Novel
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Narrated by:
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Judith Ivey
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By:
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Chris Bohjalian
About this listen
Four people in a small Vermont village are about to have their lives inexorably intertwined by the uncertainties of love . . . and the apparent absolutes of gender.
Schoolteacher Allison Banks, the long-divorced mother of a teenager on the cusp of college, has at last fallen in love. The object of her desire? Dana Stevens, a professor at the nearby university and her instructor for a summer film and literature course. Her daughter, Carly, watches with pleasure her mother's newfound happiness, but her ex-husband, Will, the president of Vermont Public Radio, is jealous. Still secretly in love with his ex-wife, he finds himself increasingly unsettled by the prospect of Allison's attachment to another man.
Yet Dana is unlike anyone Allison has ever been with: attentive, gentle, kind—and an exceptionally ardent lover. Moreover, it's clear that Dana cares just as deeply for Allison. The only stumbling block? Dana has known always that in actuality he is a woman—genitalia, plumbing, and perceptions be damned—and he will soon be having a sex change operation.
At first Allison runs, but overwhelmed by the depth of her passions, she returns. But can the pair's love transcend both the biologic imperatives that are their bodies, as well as their ingrained notions of sexual preference? Moreover, can their love survive the outrage of the small community in which they live?
All four characters—Allison, Dana, Carly, and Will—narrate this compelling story, spinning a tale that will keep you turning the pages with the eagerness we usually reserve for thrillers, while nodding in wonder at such a deeply moving and profoundly honest portrayal of longing, love, and desire.
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Critic reviews
“Inspired…. [a] highly original novel…. Impossible to put down.” —USA Today
“Trans-Sister Radio…bears Bohjalian’s hallmark: ordinary people in heartbreaking circumstances behaving with grace and dignity…. Speaks directly to the heart.” —San Francisco Chronicle
“Bohjalian has … written an interesting [and] ultimately, a quite daring novel, and a worthy successor to Midwives. Like that novel, Trans-Sister Radio challenges readers’ most dearly held notions of biological reality.” —Philadelphia Inquirer
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Wilde Lake
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Kathleen McInerney, Nicole Poole
- Length: 10 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Luisa "Lu" Brant is the newly elected - and first female - state's attorney of Howard County, Maryland, a job in which her widower father famously served. Fiercely intelligent and ambitious, she sees an opportunity to make her name by trying a mentally disturbed drifter accused of beating a woman to death in her home. It's not the kind of case that makes headlines, but peaceful Howard County doesn't see many homicides.
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In a word saccharine and boring
- By Rena on 05-12-16
By: Laura Lippman
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Get Lucky
- By: Katherine Center
- Narrated by: Morgan Hallett
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Filled with wit and heart, Get Lucky by Katherine Center explores the deep bonds of sisterhood. Sarah Harper’s whole world revolved around her job at a New York advertising agency before an email snafu got her fired. Now she’s seeking refuge at her sister Mackie’s home in Houston. But Mackie, who’s unable to get pregnant, is also down-and-out these days. So Sarah decides to do something good and becomes a surrogate mother.
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Finding what matters most in life
- By bizymom7 on 10-12-24
By: Katherine Center
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Saints for All Occasions
- A Novel
- By: J. Courtney Sullivan
- Narrated by: Susan Denaker
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Nora and Theresa Flynn are 21 and 17 when they leave their small village in Ireland and journey to America. Nora is the responsible sister; she's shy and serious and engaged to a man she isn't sure that she loves. Theresa is gregarious; she is thrilled by their new life in Boston and besotted with the fashionable dresses and dance halls on Dudley Street. But when Theresa ends up pregnant, Nora is forced to come up with a plan - a decision with repercussions they are both far too young to understand.
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The narration ruined it
- By Janis Reynolds on 06-12-17
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The Unspeakable
- And Other Subjects of Discussion
- By: Meghan Daum
- Narrated by: Meghan Daum
- Length: 6 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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It's a report tempered by hard times. In "Matricide", Daum unflinchingly describes a parent's death and the uncomfortable emotions it provokes; and in "Diary of a Coma" she relates her own journey to the twilight of the mind. But Daum also operates in a comic register. With perfect precision, she reveals the absurdities of the marriage-industrial complex, of the New Age dating market, and of the peculiar habits of the young and digital.
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Complaining about her dead mom.
- By Erik Hermansen on 11-23-14
By: Meghan Daum
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Confessions of a Latter-Day Virgin
- A Memoir
- By: Nicole Hardy
- Narrated by: Nicole Hardy
- Length: 10 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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When Nicole Hardy’s eye-opening "Modern Love" column appeared in the New York Times, the response from readers was overwhelming. Hardy’s essay, which exposed the conflict between being true to herself as a woman and remaining true to her Mormon faith, struck a chord with women coast-to-coast. Now in her funny, intimate, and thoughtful memoir, Nicole Hardy explores how she came, at the age of 35, to a crossroads regarding her faith and her identity.
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This Book Spoke to Me
- By Allison on 04-08-14
By: Nicole Hardy
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The Wednesday Sisters
- By: Meg Waite Clayton
- Narrated by: Julie Dretzin
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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For 35 years, Frankie, Linda, Kath, Brett, and Ally have met every Wednesday at the park near their homes in Palo Alto, California. Defined when they first meet by what their husbands do, the young homemakers and mothers are far removed from the Summer of Love that has enveloped most of the Bay Area in 1967.
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Loved it!
- By Denise Wallace on 06-26-09
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Nearly Normal
- Surviving the Wilderness, My Family and Myself
- By: Cea Sunrise Person
- Narrated by: Cea Sunrise Person
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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In her best-selling memoir North of Normal, Cea wrote with grace about her unconventional childhood - her early years living in a tipi in Alberta with her pot-smoking, free-loving counterculture family. But her struggles do not end when she leaves her family at the age of 13 to become a model. Honest and daring, Nearly Normal reveals the many ways that Cea's unconventional childhood continues to reverberate through the years.
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This one is just not for me
- By Pamela Plimpton on 03-15-19
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The Unwelcomed Child
- By: V. C. Andrews
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Cottle
- Length: 9 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Elle Edwards, who has been told she's a product of her mother's sinful mistake, has never gone to school, never met a teenager her own age, never even been allowed off of her grandparents' property. Convinced that their granddaughter is infected with evil, Myra and Prescott Edwards believe that only the harshest child-rearing methods will prevent Elle from becoming an instrument of the devil.
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I wanted it to be better.
- By A. Smith on 11-25-19
By: V. C. Andrews
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After I'm Gone
- A Novel
- By: Laura Lippman
- Narrated by: Linda Emond
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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Dead is dead. Missing is gone. When Felix Brewer meets nineteen-year-old Bernadette "Bambi" Gottschalk at a Valentine's Day dance in 1959, he charms her with wild promises, some of which he actually keeps. Thanks to his lucrative - if not all legal - businesses, she and their three little girls live in luxury. But on the Fourth of July in 1976, Bambi's comfortable world implodes when Felix, facing prison, vanishes. Though Bambi has no idea where her husband - or his money - might be, she suspects one woman does: his devoted young mistress, Julie.
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Cannot rate this highly enough!
- By C. Vincent on 03-05-14
By: Laura Lippman
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Small Admissions
- A Novel
- By: Amy Poeppel
- Narrated by: Carly Robins
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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Despite her innate ambition and summa cum laude smarts, Kate Pearson has turned into a major slacker. After being dumped by her handsome French "almost fiancé", she abandons her grad school plans and spends her days lolling on the couch, leaving her apartment only when a dog-walking gig demands it. Her friends don't know what to do other than pass tissues and hope for a comeback while her practical sister, Angela, pushes every remedy she can think of, from trapeze class to therapy to job interviews.
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For fans of "Where'd You Go, Bernadette ?"
- By RueRue on 01-16-17
By: Amy Poeppel
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The UnAmericans
- Stories
- By: Molly Antopol
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 7 hrs and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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Again and again, Molly Antopol’s deeply sympathetic characters struggle for footing in an uncertain world, hounded by forces beyond their control. Their voices are intimate and powerful and they resonate with searing beauty. Antopol is a superb young talent, and The UnAmericans will long be remembered for its wit, humanity, and heart.
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Sensational stories! Brilliant new author.
- By MidwestGeek on 05-04-14
By: Molly Antopol
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The Road Home
- By: Ford Michael Thomas Ford
- Narrated by: Blake Somerset
- Length: 9 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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When a car accident leaves photographer Burke Crenshaw in need of temporary full-time care, he finds himself back in the one place no forty-year-old chooses to be--his childhood bedroom. There, in the Vermont home where he grew up, Burke begins the long process of recuperation, and watches as his widowed father finds happiness in a new relationship that's a constant reminder of everything Burke wants and lacks. Exploring local history, Burke discovers an intriguing series of letters from a Civil War soldier to his fianc.
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No need to check your scepticism at the door!
- By Orlando on 08-23-13
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For 10 summers, the Seton family - all three generations - met at their country home in New England to spend a week together playing tennis, badminton, and golf, and savoring gin and tonics on the wraparound porch to celebrate the end of the season. In the 11th summer, everything changed. A hunting rifle with a single cartridge left in the chamber wound up in exactly the wrong hands at exactly the wrong time, and led to a nightmarish accident that put to the test the values that unite the family - and the convictions that just may pull it apart.
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Awesome Read
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It is 1943: Tucked away in the idyllic hills south of Florence, the Rosatis, an Italian family of noble lineage, believe that the walls of their ancient villa will keep them safe from the war raging across Europe. Eighteen-year-old Cristina spends her days swimming in the pool, playing with her young niece and nephew, and wandering aimlessly amid the estate's gardens and olive groves. But when two soldiers, a German and an Italian, arrive at the villa asking to see an ancient Etruscan burial site, the Rosatis' bucolic tranquility is shattered.
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Breathes new life
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For 10 summers, the Seton family - all three generations - met at their country home in New England to spend a week together playing tennis, badminton, and golf, and savoring gin and tonics on the wraparound porch to celebrate the end of the season. In the 11th summer, everything changed. A hunting rifle with a single cartridge left in the chamber wound up in exactly the wrong hands at exactly the wrong time, and led to a nightmarish accident that put to the test the values that unite the family - and the convictions that just may pull it apart.
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Patience Avery is a dowser—a "water witch". Her natural gifts enable her to locate lost items, missing people, and aquifers deep within the earth. This last skill is more in demand than ever, as her home state of Vermont is in the grip of the worst drought in years. Patience knows better than most that this crisis is only the start: a sign of worse things to come.
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decent listen
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From the best selling and critically acclaimed author of Trans-Sister Radio comes a hauntingly beautiful story of the ties that bind families - and the strains that pull them apart. "Bohjalian writes honestly and often movingly," says Publishers Weekly, and Library Journal calls it "tender...[written] with poetic skill."
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Touching, and Sincere
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From the New York Times best-selling author of The Flight Attendant comes a twisting story of love and deceit: An American man vanishes on a rural road in Vietnam, and his girlfriend follows a path that leads her home to the very hospital where they met.
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Wait till COVID19 has passed to read this one!
- By Taryn on 03-29-20
By: Chris Bohjalian
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The Sandcastle Girls
- A Novel
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When Elizabeth Endicott arrives in Syria, she has a diploma from Mount Holyoke College, a crash course in nursing, and only the most basic grasp of the Armenian language. The First World War is spreading across Europe, and she has volunteered on behalf of the Boston-based Friends of Armenia to deliver food and medical aid to refugees of the Armenian genocide. There, Elizabeth becomes friendly with Armen, a young Armenian engineer who has already lost his wife and infant daughter. When Armen leaves Aleppo to join the British Army in Egypt, he begins to write Elizabeth letters....
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Bohjalian is Better Than This...
- By Pamela Harvey on 08-12-12
By: Chris Bohjalian
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Hour of the Witch
- A Novel
- By: Chris Bohjalian
- Narrated by: Grace Experience, Saskia Maarleveld, Danny Campbell, and others
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- Unabridged
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Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is 24 years old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life.
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Interesting story almost ruined by the Narration
- By Tori on 05-08-21
By: Chris Bohjalian
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The Coworker
- By: Freida McFadden
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Two women. An office filled with secrets. One terrible crime that can't be taken back. Dawn Schiff is strange. At least, everyone thinks so at Vixed, the nutritional supplement company where Dawn works as an accountant. She never says the right thing. She has no friends. And she is always at her desk at precisely 8:45 a.m.
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Turtle lovers only
- By HailtoTheVictors on 09-03-23
By: Freida McFadden
What listeners say about Trans-Sister Radio
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- monica caulfield
- 11-06-19
Mediocre
The book is good, besides some of the outdated language they use. However, I was trying to listen to the audio while following along in the paper book and the recording skips A LOT. It even skipped a whole chapter. The accent for Will is hard to listen to and Dana who is from Florida for some reason has a southern accent
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- Ailish A. Welch
- 12-17-15
Pretty interesting but ending seemed patchy
Would you listen to Trans-Sister Radio again? Why?
I bought this book because someone at work whose office is near mine is in the process of this transition. I was hoping this book would give me a better understanding of the issues and it did achieve that goal. The characters were pretty good and likeable, I just did not love the ending which seemed a bit sudden and implausible.
What other book might you compare Trans-Sister Radio to and why?
Middlesex - both books about topics most people know nothing about and rarely think about.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
Overall the narrator did a good job
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1 person found this helpful
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- Madalyn M. Tanner
- 10-01-20
The narrator's voice...
Get accent is atrocious!! It's about Vermont people. But her nyc/jersey accent takes away from the story because it's so off!!!!
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Overall
- YoginiZora
- 12-26-05
finely textured, gracefully written
I'm a longtime fan of Chris Bohjalian, and have relished all of his fiction. It's no surprise to me that this book received a quiet reception, since one of its central characters is trans-sexual -- a complicated and mis-understood phenomenon. Bohjalian doesn't shy away from exploring the full range of conflicts and questions that arise when Dana, a male professor, falls in love with Allison in the tiny town of Bartlett, VT -- and then announces that he's in the process of gender reassignment. The complexity of this relationship includes its effects on Allison, a school teacher, and the town's residents.
Allison's ex-husband, Will, and their daughter, Carly, are the other 2 characters that Bohjalian lends equal voice to as the novel shifts perspective over and over.
Judith Ivey has done a phenomenal reading: she uses slight "accents" to distiguish between the multiple characters' perspectives. She also has a knack for bringing Bohjalian's thoughtful prose to life.
Overall, this is one of the most compelling, intriguing books I've iPodded off of Audible. The timing of the story is just right, and the details and texture of its unfolding are satisfying. I didn't want it to end!
The one caution I would grant to possible listeners is that some people are sure to have trouble listening to a novel that so prominently features trans-sexuality. Personally, I enjoyed it because I have several trans-sexual friends and this book is a marvelous portrayal of the breadth of a TS character; it is never sensationalistic. You WILL learn a great deal through Bohjalian's characters, and so I encourage you to take the risk.
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20 people found this helpful
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- Dana in Franklin
- 01-22-15
Couldn't turn it off.
This story is beautifully written about a subject in which I have no firsthand knowledge. I definitely develop some compassion. I Love the way the author use the NPR format and I very much enjoyed the narrator. My only peeve is that Dana is from Miami and has a heavy southern accent. Truth is Dana should either have a New York accent or a South American. Why the mother has no accent at all is also odd. Nonetheless, quite enjoyable.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Joanna Watson
- 07-02-12
Very Good Gender Bending Story
This one kept me interested from beginning to end. I would have listened to the whole book in one sitting if I could. As a straight man, it always intrigues me that some guys undergo sexual reassignment surgery, the steps they take and why they do it. I respect anybody who isn't afraid to be who they are despite all the shallow minded people in society.
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5 people found this helpful
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- Sara Thompson
- 06-26-19
Interesting premise
I wasn't crazy about the format of interviews, but the narrator did a phenomenal job of voicing the characters so that it was very easy to know who was speaking. I'm not sure when this book was written, but there were definitely things I wasn't comfortable with, one of which was the idea that the soul has a gender. With non-gender conforming folks coming out these days, I felt that was a kind of limiting idea. I was also not thrilled with the use of the word "transsexual," but that was mostly due to my own sensitivities to the words that are used. Again, interesting idea.
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- Jeni P
- 02-19-20
Thought-provoking
I was disappointed with some of the descriptions involving the relationships between Dana and others. I would not say this is the author's best book.
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Overall
- Nancy F. Heller
- 12-04-05
Excellent book
This is an excellent book, well read too. The story is intriguing with a man undergoing a sex change operation. But it is not clincal. There are numerous relationships with his girlfriend prior to the surgery and afterwards. One learns to view these people as people and the feelings that they have. The inclusion of fake NPR segments give the book added punch. It is a hard book to put down and I highly recommend it.
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9 people found this helpful
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- Julie Bluey
- 04-08-20
Held my interest, but no wow factor.
I am the partner of a trans-woman, and some of the old terminology used in this book grated on me. I think it was a bit far fetched and yet predictable at the same time. Certain aspects of Dana's story was well presented though. I thought the narrator had a tough time. Her portrayal of Will's raspy voice was difficult to listen to.
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