She's not there

An Amazing Love Story, and Story of an Amazing Transformation

Besides being a powerful love story, well told, Jenny provides a poignant, witty, and very honest portrait of what it is to be transsexual. I found much in common with her experience because I am a transsexual woman myself, BUT others who are not can also identify with Jenny for her courage to be who she truly is - she speaks universally. I was also impressed with the perspectives Jenny provided by including the thoughts of those close to her, most especially Grace (her wife and now partner), and Russo (her best friend both before and now after transition). I was moved with Jenny's transformation, descibed as a "runnaway freight train" by Grace, and how Jenny found herself slipping into her true self, almost being pulled by a force of nature. And Grace's experience of loss and her "reinventing herself" as her beloved James became something beyond a "sister" even as they remained married, bound by love that transcends any physical relationship. Likewise, Russo had to reinvent himself and his friendship with (now) Jenny. And we catch glimpses of how children perceive and relate to transgender parents: we are not simply told these things have happened, we see these people transform even as we witness James become Jennifer... ...ALL these things haunt my own transition as I try to make fuller sense of the freedom, joys, pains and losses I have been experiencing as I "become". And especially important, the pain and losses my transition has already induced in the lives of those close to me, AND and what the future may hold for my own various relationships...There is hope that what is *becoming* will be better than what was before, and that my own story will be found to be a love story also. I have read the book more than once, and it is the sort of book that grows in depth and richness as one revisits it. One of the amazing things about Jenny's writing is how I can be laughing at one sentence and crying by the end of the next - THAT is how powerful this book is! Other,...