Lauren's Reviews > She's My Dad

Ok now that was entertaining. What a read! Add this to your LGBT library now. In the spirit of Stefon from SNL: This book has everything! Trans professors, complicated secret histories, evil billionaires, Russian criminals, floppy disks (lol yes really), and more!

I think of this almost like 2 books in 1. The overarching story is a sweet one about a trans woman who returns to her undergraduate college to teach, post-transition and many years after she graduated from the college presenting as a man. She learns that a love affair she (then Nicholas) had with an older woman in college resulted in a son, and this book is about everything that ensues to set her on the path to meet him...

and (this is book #2 lol) when I say "everything that ensues," I mean "things get batshit crazy." I will not elaborate but this is a wild plot, perfect for readers who have gotten a bit bored lately. I LOVED that crazy shit went down in this book. Sometimes it feels like authors are afraid to "go there" and Woulff went there, haha.

Some authors would have focused on just the emotional aspects of this story--a woman learning of and meeting a son she never knew existed-- and it would have been good. But I like what Woulff did better. She's My Dad is a creative, exciting story that sits JUST perfectly on this side of "something that could possibly theoretically maybe happen" --and that is a hard place to land! It is something that would never happen in real life, but is within the realm of imagining. And all the while, the validity and beauty of queer people and queer relationships comes through.

My couple critiques of the book are mostly related to editing. The book felt a bit long and the foreshadowing in places is heavy handed. I didn't mind a bit. I had a lot of fun reading this and look forward to reading more of the author's work.