Book Reviews
Mitchelstown’s Amy O’Brien is a 16 year old self confessed ‘activist and advocate’, passionate about equity and justice, with a love for reading and baking too. Amy continues with her book review for readers of TheAvondhu. To access these books for free, visit your local library online or in person. This week’s book is:
DETRANSITION, BABY by Torrey Peters
The lives of three women begin to intertwine throughout the course of this book after an unexpected pregnancy forces them to confront their deepest desires, all wrapped up in this highly celebrated novel, Detransition, Baby.
Brooklyn based Torrey Peters is the author of this novel which won the 2021 PEN/Hemingway award for debut fiction, was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Awards, a finalist for the Brooklyn Public Library Award and was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. A collection of four novellas, titled Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones, will be published by Random House in 2023. She has an MFA from the University of Iowa and a Masters in Comparative Literature from Dartmouth.
As with any opening of a book, it can take a couple of chapters to really connect with the characters and feel invested in their stories, which I did find reading this, but once I got to know them, I enjoyed the rest of the book so much more. Trans woman, Reese once dated, loved and longed for a child with Amy, also a trans woman. At the beginning of their relationship they are both trangender women, but for the majority of the plot, Amy has destransitioned and identifies as a man named Ames. Amidst the bustling New York scenes, we learn that Reese and Amy broke up before starting a family.
Amy detransitioned and started dating Katrina, her boss who unexpectedly became pregnant with their child.
Within this book, the author explains the struggle for trans women to start a family which leads to her plot, Ames offers Reese a chance to be a mother, her truest longing. He proposes the three of them raise the child together. As the pair get to know Katrina and try to convince her that this family could work, we learn that though unconventional… motherhood can look so many ways as long as that way is also loving.
Torrey Peters explores why motherhood is important and what it means to each of these 3 characters. I loved Ames’ story that she told over the course of the book, flitting between modern day and moments in the past when Reese and Amy were together. I feel like I didn’t empathize with him as a character fully until his story unravelled closer to the end, but when I did, I felt so much love and heartbreak for Ames.
Peters has made it clear in interviews about Detransition, Baby, that this book is not a ‘101 on trans rights’ or a social justice non-fiction. She wanted to write something fun that actually represented her story and the friends around her, I’m so glad she did. Nonetheless, for those of you reading this review who, like me, identify as the gender they were assigned at birth; I did learn a lot reading from these characters’ perspectives that I could never truly guess or understand. That is why reading is so important!
Yes, you can learn important facts from non-fiction and devour educational history books, but we learn from every fiction book too. When I read fiction, I’m stepping into someone else’s shoes for a little while and living a different life through the writer’s words.
Closing the final page, I felt this was still just a story like the foundations of so many others of love, heartbreak, anger, sadness, joy and family but still, a story like no other I’ve read which is why this book will leave it’s mark, challenge you and most powerfully, touch your heart.
I loved this book and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!