I hope that trans teens will find courage and hope in this narrative, and that cisgender individuals will find enlightenment and inspiration through Arin and his words. The narrative is written very accessibly the voice is not preachy and the details are never gratuitous or too vague, giving a no-nonsense feel to the overall book.
While the story is not unlike many novels I've been reading recently, the fact that I know this person is real makes the narrative and journey that much more fascinating and powerful. It was incredible to see the struggles, the bravery, and the courage that Arin has, which brought him to the point where his is now able to live freely as a male while still remaining in a relationship with his family. I didn't realize until a few chapters in that I had actually followed Arin on youtube a while back, watching the early stages of his experiences with testosterone injections and later the recovery period after his top surgery.
But I need my body to be my own." Arin's journey is enlightening, inspiring, and ultimately uplifting.
(Also, if you want a brief introduction to Arin and Katie, check out the Barneys of New York ad embedded below.)Įars started streaming down cheeks, down her neck. Some Assembly Required and Hill's companion memoir, Rethinking Normal, should be incorporated into as many high schools and gender studies classrooms as possible, as far as I'm concerned, and they will make intriguing comparison pieces with memoirs of transgender individuals from decades earlier, especially looking at changes in social acceptance and perception. Of course, when I get this excited, I inevitably start creating HUGE expectations in my head, and sometimes that means disappointment (until I remind myself that it was my own fault for creating expectations in the first place.) This, I am happy to say, is not one of those cases! There is a history of memoir being used as a tool for self-expression, self-exploration, and a platform through which to inform a larger population, so to see two young people using just such a form to express themselves and engage young people in thinking more about gender and sexuality was a huge thrill. As a scholar working on young adult literature for and about transgender teens, I was beyond thrilled when a friend at Simon & Schuster informed me that two new memoirs were coming out from Arin Andrews and Katie Rain Hill.
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