The Danish Girl Book

This book does a terrible job of showing the lived experience of a trans individual. Rather than demonstrate the difficult journey of a member of the trans community, this author chose to portray the experience of someone with dissociative identity disorder which is definitely not the same thing. What I find particularly grating is that the source material is exponentially more interesting than the schlock written here. The artistic liberties the author took to flesh out his version of the story were poorly thought out and were ultimately detrimental to the remarkable true story. How such an interesting tale and vivid characters can be painted so flat is beyond me.

While this novel is being celebrated for its portrayal of complex gender and sexual minority characters, the actual product creates a confusing image for people trying to understand the real people behind the fictional representations; as such I don't think it is deserving of that kind of praise. As a "written in a vacuum" piece of art, I evaluate this novel the same. FLAT, & DULL, & SEXUALLY CONFUSED.

Memory Index:
Anticipated: 3 (just for how much I disliked it when I first read it)
Actual: 0 (thought about this novel zero times since reading it)

As an addendum to the peanut gallery's comments - a novel does not HAVE to be a service to anything. A novel does not HAVE to push an agenda. A piece of art can be evaluated as if it emerged from a vacuum. Feel free to do this in your own reviews. You have that freedom available to you as an evaluator of this piece.