By Paulina
The latest book that I have read was about the life of a transgender woman, titled She’s Not There by Jennifer Boylan. I came across this book at my auntie’s house in a bag filled with dirty notebooks and magazines. I had never seen nor read a book quite like it so I decided to keep it and take it home. In the book, Boylan takes us through the course of her life as we learn about her life as a child to a grown adult. Throughout the book she told her story with equal sadness and humor, writing them out in short stories. Before transitioning she had a wife, two children and a job as an English professor at a university. After her transition she still all and even more. The love and support of the people around her and the support of strangers. I loved the stories Boylan told, from falling in love with her wife to getting wild at the bars in Ireland.
One of the stories she told stood out to me. In this part of the story she was recalling her time in transition, she was going to a support group and wrote about the people in the group, including Trudy. Trudy was dead set on committing suicide and when Boylan tried to talk her out of it she ended up crying, telling Trudy how she almost felt like dying. This scene touched me deeply because despite Boylan’s confession Trudy couldn’t see that suicide was the wrong way to go. I have met many people in my life who have the same perspective as Trudy so I took this section of the book to heart. I recommend this book to anyone who is interested in having a good laugh while seeing the world in someone else’s eyes and learning their struggles.