Chaz BonoCritiques

Review: The End of Innocence by Chastity Bono.

While reading this book I could not call it a memoir. It started out about Chastity and when she first felt unusual about her gender and the struggles she had to overcome how she felt and how she was going to let her parents know. She was a lesbian for a while before she came out of the closet. She didn’t have an easy life like a lot of children of well-known parents.

As I read I thought her relationship with her parents was somewhat not a happy one. I don’t know why I felt that way but in this book she never talked about them. There were a couple short mentions of them but it was mostly about how she lived, what she did for a career, and who she hung out with but that even seemed somewhat short and sad. One thing that surprised me is that Chastity did go down that path as a singer but that was like riding a roller coaster because she and her band, “Ceremony” tried for four years and never got anywhere. She mentioned she didn’t even ask for any help from her parents. It’s like she was in another world just being Chastity.

The book was mostly about her love triangle relationship between Rachel, herself and Joan. She loved Rachel but she wasn’t happy. Joan was her true and only love of her life who she met at a young age because Joan was a good friend of her mother… For a few years she just fantasized about Joan until she sensed that Joan had feelings for her too. Also, Joan had a form of cancer where she would go into remission for long periods of time. Joan was her mother’s age but that never bothered Chastity. Most of the book was about her feeling for Joan and how close they were. However, Chastity didn’t have the forwardness to end her relationship with Rachel. She kept trying but she kept saying to Joan that she didn’t want to hurt Rachel.

Everything kept going back and forth until Joan was really sick from the cancer. Then Chastity decided she wanted to give Joan all her love. Chastity had a rough time being with Joan as her body was giving up to cancer. It was sad but I feel that this book is more a memorial to Joan, which is alright; however, it wasn’t a memoir of Chastity…

For being a book titled Transition, I find it shocking that Chaz Bono only dedicated the last two chapters of his book to discuss the physical aspects of transitioning (hormone injections and top surgery). The entire work leading up to it, he talked about growing up neglected by Sonny and Cher, his mentally abusive nanny Helen and his addiction to pain killers. Not at all what I was hoping to get out of this work.

I won a paperback copy of this book through goodreads.com First Reads giveaway.

Now I read this book when it came out about a year ago and loved it. So the giveaway was for the release of the paperback version of the book which included a new epilogue.

So first of all, Chaz Bono is one of the most inspiring men on the planet, in my opinion anyway. I wanted to read this book because I am a supporter of GLBT community. I myself am straight, but I have gay friends and personally believe that everyone has the right to be happy no matter who they choose to live there life with. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live most of your life knowing that you belong in another body, or feeling like you should have another body. I mean sometimes I wake up in the morning and hate having to take so long shaving my legs/armpits, or having to endure putting on pantyhose (I mean COME ON who invented that deathly contraption anyway?) and I think to myself “wouldn't my life be so much easier if I was a man?” However, it occurs to me having read this book that there are probably millions of men out in the world who want to be women, and who would love the opportunity to wake up and have to shave there legs. It made me appreciate things like that which I take for granted (I still hate pantyhose though).

I loved how brave Chaz was for sharing his transition in a book and in his documentary. I loved learning more about him, and what he had to go through. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about Transitioning, just on a personal level, it didn't get into like too much medical details. I just thought it was really inspiring.

This book's subject matter, transitioning from female to male, is interesting enough despite my wish for this book to have been better written. If a reader can just take away from Chaz's book the step-by-step stages he went through until he came into the reality of being a man, so much the better.

What I personally wanted to get out of reading this memoir was to more fully understand the psychology and physiology of the transition from female to male. Chaz tells his story, but I suspect there is much more to this transition that what is revealed here - although Chaz can only give his own perspective. To get a better understanding of this transition, I'd think additional books, both memoirs and medical, about this subject need to be read.

However, I applaud what Chaz has done. Perhaps, if this book were about any other FTM (female to male transgender), I would not have even picked it up. I always loved Sonny and Cher and always thought Chastity was so cute - except for not liking her name! Chaz, though, has come full circle into being who he really felt he was, although his experience was not without pain. His goal in writing this book was to teach others about his situation which, to some, might seem extremely bizarre.

Chaz's memoir is probably an easy place to start learning about this gender identity crisis and how one person, albeit a well-known individual, has worked out the best way to improve his own situation.½

Chaz Bono reitterates his life and coming out process, here from an acknowledged transgender perspective. The writing is often repetitive, but read simply as a memoir it's a useful addition to the literature. It's also an interesting illustration of how we interpret ourselves and our stories post hoc; Bono and I share a number of characteristics and experiences, but understand them differently in relation to our identities. What matters, of course, is not that one of us must be wrong, but that we are both right about ourselves, and at peace.

Chaz Bono, formerly Chastity Bono, the only child of Sonny and Cher, details how he realized he was actually a male (which took many years) and transitioned into a body with which he feels much more comfortable. Although I applaud Chaz for being so open about his transition (which, even he states, was necessitated by his parents' fame), the book itself isn't that good of a read. It's important, I think, since Chaz is a somewhat well-known person in America, but it's not particularly compelling. The author also has a tendency to sound really whiny at times, as if the whole world is against him. Perhaps that's what he felt, but he had numerous opportunities that many others never had. Still, a relatively good read, although there's nothing earth-shattering to be gleaned here.

Like many in my generation, I remember Chastity Bono as a tres adorable blonde toddler on The Sonny and Cher Show. In the meantime, "she" has grown up to be "he" and has written a book about the process of discovery.

While neither Bono nor his ghost writer produce anything approaching deathless prose, the book is overall pretty well-organized.

I didn't have any particular expectations going in, and finished without any major revelations, but I did learn quite a lot about how Bono views his life as the child of famous parents. (First response to everything seems to be to hire a lawyer and a publicist, and you can always count on mommy to finance everything.)

I do wish him happiness with his life -- he protests often that he hadn't had any until he was about 40-- but I can help but wonder if transsexualism isn't just the latest thing that he believes will make him happy, as did music, film, acting, writing, activism, lesbianism and drugs, at various points. Despite protestations that he's more assertive now, he spends a lot of time explaining that Republicans are really nice, his parents' focus on their jobs was really beneficial, reality shows are really pretty good, and all his struggles with drugs really made him stronger. The only thing he seems never to excuse is child abuse, which he says he experienced at the hands of his main nanny. Cher comes off as a very unsympathetic character, while his far-right Republican father was pretty laid-back and live-and-let-live.

Bono's book -- his third -- is essentially he-said-she-said pop psychology with almost every gender stereotype he could shove in. Not a bad book, but one I feel happy to have borrowed rather than bought.

I think there was a lot of value for the young or older transgender person. Anyone on any particular journey in life likes to read about others on similar paths. I disagree with permaswooned about Chaz's desire to transition because there was no other choice for happiness. It was a lot more than that. Chaz's honesty about what was going on in his head throughout his life's ups and downs offered many insights for any human being. Does it matter how he commenced his transition? Why does he need to go to a prestigious clinic? Yes, he has had a hard life. To write about not only the easy stuff of life but the really hard stuff that exposes you to the world to help others is courageous.

Crazy but I really liked listening to this so much more than i expected . Also was read by the author½

I saw an interview with Chaz a couple of months ago and thought I would be interested in reading the book or seeing the documentary. I read "Conundrum" years ago about a male to female transition and found it interesting, so thought this would also give me some insights.

Instead I found it disappointing and sad. I learned a great deal about Chaz' failed relationships, failed careers and years spent in a drug haze or stupor of video games. He did not go to any of the prestigious gender reassignment clinics out there today but just started taking testosterone obtained through an endocrinologist.

Unfortunately, the desire to transition seemed almost to be a choice because nothing else had really led to success or happiness.

There was really very little about the logistics, and I'm not sure there was anything of value to a young transgender person.

Ultimately disappointing, since I like what I have seen of him lately and really wanted to like the book.

Read this for research for my writing. Interesting, but I feel sorry for the upbringing that Cher did not provide for Chaz. Did not make his life easier. At times, I felt that Cher was the child and Chaz the parent. Don't know if I would have read it otherwise.½

Very easy to read (I read it in just a few hours), superficial look at Cher's daughter's transition to being Cher's son.

Check out my review...http://shannonsbookbag.blogspot.com/2011/10/transition-bono.html