Janet Mock's honest and sometimes searing journey is a rare and important look into la vida liminal, one that she manages to negotiate remarkably well, with grace, humor, and fierce grit. Mock doesn't only redefine what realness means to her, but challenges us to rethink our own perceptions of gender and sexuality, feminism and sisterhood, making this book a transcendent piece of American literature.

Come to think of it, maybe God is a He after all, because only a cruel force would create something this beautiful and make it inaccessible to most people

I wish she'd said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can't hide from it, not even here.

For some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.

I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.

Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end.

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.