i stumbled onto marlo mack's podcast (of the same title) by accident a few years back. i was immediately mesmerized by the mother raising a very young (less than 5yo) transgender daughter in a time when transgender is a much less understood word (circa 2010s or just about, if i'm right). marlo (all names are faked) narrates in a calm, steady, and honest voice, and she slips in snippets of her daughter just talking, playing, singing every once in a while.

after 40 episodes, marlo stopped updating her podcast, and i missed her and her daughter. then last year, i discovered she spent the time developing their story into a new audiobook! and, it's not just a retelling of the podcast, its almost all new, with more details she could not fit into her previous medium.

the book and the podcast are some of the most powerful storytelling i've ever listened to. many times i have asked myself if there's a book that has really affected or changed me and i could not find an honest answer. now, i do.

quoting marlo early in the first chapter...

"i'm going to save my son from himself"

...and then to say later on before the chapter ends...

"i will re-shape the world in my daughter's image". ( )

How to be a girl is a moving, brave and incredibly vital memoir that will make you cry and lift you up, Break your heart then wrap a blanket around your shoulders because the story within these pages IS unconditional love and acceptance embodied; It does not get more real, more heart wrenching. or more inspirational than this memoir.

How to be a Girl is a mothers story of her journey in raising a transgendered child. While the subject is still relatively new to being recognized as important and acceptable, many stories starting to hit shelves are from the child's point of view.; While those stories are equally vital the knowledge we gain by reading a parents experience through the journey could not possibly be more relevant than is is right now.

Ask yourself as a Mother or as a father what would you do if one day your child comes at you with something like this:
"Mama, he said, "something went wrong in your tummy...and it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl. "Put me back Mama Put me back so I can come out again as a girl! "
This is M's reality as she knew how to voice while being so young. This is the outburst Mack was faced with and this is what truly set off the journey about to unfold.

We follow along as worlds feel shattered, new territory is explored, mistakes are made and learning happens every single day for both Mother and daughter. Together the path is paved from a raging storm to the gentle ebb and flow of daily life, of family life as it is for any individual.

As readers, we can not gain more from a story than this one. Readers will learn right along with Mack and M, and gather some tools necessary to avoid a situation that for some may be messy. Keep in mind while reading that this is real, this is going on not only for M but for millions of individuals, young and old around the world today. Let this story guide you to a place of solid ground,

A perfect accompaniment to the podcast, which if you haven't already been following you must do so now, This book is a start yes, but you will truly be missing out if you don't also give the podcast a try.
I do so love the visual aids scattered amongst the book that provides us one more thing the podcast can't quite achieve on its own.

Thank you to Netgalley and publishers for the advanced e-copy in exchange for my honest opinion. I am beyond proud to promote this book and will be shouting it's title from the rooftops until everyone near me has experienced this one. ( )

A few years ago, a friend recommended me to hear the podcast 'How to be a Girl', where a parent tells the story of her young child's journey as a trans person, from a very young age to the start of her teens. From the book:

> When the world split wide open, it was a November evening. We had just walked in the front door and were shedding the day’s damp coats and bags. Outside, the Seattle sky was preparing for an early bedtime, transforming the cloud ceiling from old-pillow gray to the color of wet ash. I reached out to flip on the lights and felt my child slip his hand into mine
> “Mama,” he said, “something went wrong in your tummy.”
> I heard my purse hit the floor.
> “It did?”
> “Yes,” he said. “And it made me come out as a boy instead of a girl.”

The forté of this book is twofold: Mack's storytelling abilities and how M—the pseudonym for the child—acts.

The mind of M is the most baffling thing to me; while listening to the podcast she made me cry and revamp certain fixated ideas about gender that I didn't know I carried around. M is possibly an extraordinarily intelligent kid, thinking far beyond a lot of peers and elders in a lot of ways.

This book is a roller-coaster of a ride, but it's also constant war.

Mack seems to honestly have painted a picture of her own prejudice, shortcomings, failures, and stories of how M constant puts things in perspective.

> My child contemplated his plate of buttered noodles and said, “I wish I could drink a potion that would make my penis melt off.” Then he smiled, looking pleased with his great idea, like when he had suggested we build him a bed out of LEGOs.

My friend who recommended the podcast to me pointed something out about the book: Mack constantly uses the 'his' pronoun in a problematic way. I hope Mack tried to use it to display the before/after point where M decided to traverse genders. Still, things like these appear:

> “It isn’t nice when you do that, Mama.”
> He glared at me in the rearview mirror.
> Do what?”
> “When you tell people I’m a boy. It is not nice.”
> “But you are a boy, sweetheart,” I said. It didn’t seem fair not to say what was true.
> “You’re a boy because you have a pen—”
> “No,” he interrupted me. “I’m never a boy.”
> I had no idea how to argue with this declaration. But I also wasn’t prepared to agree with it, so I opted for a compromise.
> “OK,” I said. “I’ll stop telling people you’re not a girl. Would that make you feel better?”
> He snorted, rolling his eyes, as if to say, If that’s the best you can do, lady. For now, it was.

A bit later:

> How his face lit up when people mistook him for a girl. How for his fourth birthday, he asked for a poofy party dress and a vagina.
> “I was able to give him just one of those,” I joked, wanting to hear people laugh, and they obliged.

If we temporarily discard all that M brings to the table in the shape of quotes, the good in the book is how Mack reshapes their thinking throughout; they first think M is a boy and that her wish to 'be a girl' is 'just a phase'. I'm a sucker for human stories of how people realise their own shortcomings and honestly wrestle with them; the book contains a lot of this.

I wish this book didn't feel as fragmented as it does. In podcast form, that's alright, it's to be expected. In a book, it doesn't really work. I wish there were more cohesion to the book.

The book is not very different from the podcast. In fact, if you listen to the podcast and the two-part documentary that Mack made with the BBC, you have access to most of the book. On the other side, M's radiance comes across as an apeirogon regardless of media.

All in all, the book is very illuminating, interesting, and provides ample discussion points about gender and issues that people have with trans worlds; I have already mentioned the downside of this book. Mack does put themselves out there in how they knowingly appear stupid and insane when discussing matters like the word 'nonbinary' with M; this method, of acting a more-stupid version of Doctor Watson to M's Sherlock Holmes, is very effective in illuminating the reader. ( )