While it offers a valuable perspective on trans issues in appreciative fiction with the essay and introductions, the actual story strikes me as somehow dated. It reads like something from Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions. ( )

I rather enjoyed this one, particularly "Burning Beard." I remember the original story from when I read it as a young churchgoer (back when I was one), and this version does such a good job of showing what such a story probably would have been like. ( )

I picked this up at the library largely because I recognized the series from a review of a different book in the series that I never found anywhere. I'd already decided to check it out when the back copy described Pollack as a "progressive voice in the transgender community," but got even more excited about it when the title story was described as drawing on "magical realism, quantum science, memoir, and myth."

Even with all that, I wasn't sure I would read this before I had to return it because I am generally resistant to short story collections. But I impulsively picked it up in need of a book to take to the dentist's office, and once I started reading, I didn't ever want to stop. I loved both the fiction and non-fiction inclusions here and can't really pick a favorite piece because I loved them all. I'm feeling a bit inadequate that I wasn't familiar with Pollack before this and will definitely have an eye out for her in the future. She speaks to me a heretical theology of inclusiveness, and I am always down for that. ( )