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“Required reading.”—Glennon Doyle, #1 bestselling author of Untamed
A THEM AND AUTOSTRADDLE BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE PAT LOWTHER MEMORIAL AWARD
What happens when we imagine loving the people—and the parts of ourselves—that we do not believe are worthy of love?
Kai Cheng Thom grew up a Chinese Canadian transgender girl in a hostile world. As an activist, psychotherapist, conflict mediator, and spiritual healer, she’s always pursued the same deeply personal mission: to embrace the revolutionary belief that every human being, no matter how hateful or horrible, is intrinsically sacred.
But then Kai Cheng found herself in a crisis of faith, overwhelmed by the viciousness with which people treated one another, and barely clinging to the values and ideals she’d built her life around: justice, hope, love, and healing. Rather than succumb to despair and cynicism, she gathered all her rage and grief and took one last leap of faith: she wrote. Whether prayers or spells or poems—and whether there’s a difference—she wrote to affirm the outcasts and runaways she calls her kin. She wrote to flawed but nonetheless lovable men, to people with good intentions who harm their own, to racists and transphobes seemingly beyond saving. What emerged was a blueprint for falling back in love with being human.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
August 1, 2023 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593594995
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593594995
- File size: 2176 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Starred review from June 26, 2023
Hypnotherapist Thom (Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars) explores hope, forgiveness, and love in these heartrending prose poems. Growing up in Vancouver as a Chinese Canadian trans girl, Thom was no stranger to what she calls the “harsher side of human nature,” but faith in the power of human bonds “has always been my solace and my guide,” even when “my faith was tested.” Her determination to write her way out of a mid-pandemic period of personal loss gave rise to a series of love letters—to the dead, to the strength of her younger self, and even to those who’ve caused her harm. One missive celebrates the joy of being trans-femme, even amid a climate of fear and violence; another extends a cautious olive branch to “trans-exclusionary radical feminists,” with whom she shares the desire for a safer world. Interleaved are ritual suggestions for readers to drop stones into a river to release their burdens, or make a “list of five good things that you frequently do for other people” and do “them all, at least once, for yourself.” Thom’s unvarnished honesty and earnestness immediately draws readers in—“This book is my act of prayer in a collapsing world,” she writes. “I hope it can be yours too.” This fierce and tender volume leaves a mark. -
Starred review from June 10, 2024
Novelist/essayist/poet Thom (I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl's Notes from the End of the World), a Lambda Literary Award finalist and Chinese Canadian transgender woman, writes a series of beautiful, fragmentary letters of sorts, showcasing how life can be at once horrifically ugly and desperately, jaw-droppingly beautiful. She describes this work as a volume of poetry and nondenominational prayers written to the parts of oneself that are deemed unlovable and the parts of others that have violated some aspect of humanness in a way that feels hateful, harmful, or worse. Thom's poems and fragments are followed by prompts, instructing readers how to find their way from hate to love. While not all of the writing or the prompts will resonate with readers, their vulnerability and rawness demonstrate how anyone can think about ugly moments and write through them to reach, if not to love, at a modicum of peace. VERDICT Beautiful, painful, and healing, this is a much-needed reminder of society's common humanity and the authority people have in determining what it means to share in the work of being human.--Emily Bowles
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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